


Debt Price

by Dusk Peterson (duskpeterson)



Series: Master/Other [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical AU, Alternate Universe - Original, Alternate Universe - Renaissance, Assassins, Ducks, Historical slash, Lords, Master & Servant, Multi, Original Fiction, Original Slash, Prisonfic, Queer Gen, Rape Recovery, Rebels, Romantic Friendship, Terrorists, abuse recovery, criminals, don't need to read other stories in the series, farming, original gen, servantfic, slavefic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-19
Updated: 2015-08-19
Packaged: 2018-04-15 15:20:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 35,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4611681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duskpeterson/pseuds/Dusk%20Peterson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He kept his gaze cast below the belt. In the chill cell, sweat was beginning to form now on his neck, running down his back and between his bound wrists. 'Lord,' he said softly, 'I would be glad to pay to you my debt in any way I can.'"</p>
<p>No one would pay his debt price to gain him release from prison. So he sought to pay it himself by offering the only thing he could, his body. But one man would require more.</p>
<p>Convicted of helping to wage a campaign of terror against the lords who oppress the commoners, the prisoner comes to realize the full implications of what he has done. All of his attempts to mend what he has broken will fail until he meets a young lord whose own struggles have just begun.</p>
<p>Set in an imaginary world based on Renaissance Europe, "Debt Price" takes the reader from the gritty punishments of prison life to the delicately balanced world of a farming estate, showing the slow healing of a prisoner who knows both what it means to be abused, and what it means to be the abuser.</p>
<p> <br/><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/duskpeterson/profile#w"><i>Boilerplate warning for all my stories.</i></a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fallow

**Author's Note:**

>   
>    
> 
> 
> Artwork: _Debt Price_ (2002), by H. Rose Melenche. Copyright (c) 2002 H. Rose Melenche ([gallery.digitalmidnight.org](http://gallery.digitalmidnight.org)).
> 
> **Content note** : Readers are cautioned that this story about abuse recovery begins with a description of the abuse. Both of the main characters are over eighteen years of age at the time the story begins.

**_Debt Price_ 1**   
**FALLOW**

>    
> "And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he should pay his entire debt."
> 
> — _The Gospel of Matthew_ (18:34).

  
**CHAPTER ONE**

They kept his hands bound. He wasn't sure why; he had stopped resisting toward the end of his second week, around the time of his hundredth rape. 

He no longer kept track of the men, as he had back in those early days, when he had memorized their faces with his proud eyes, calculating the debt they owed him. The thought of how he would collect that debt had been sweet to him. 

Then the blazing pride began to die. He hadn't expected that; he hadn't realized at first the meaning of the chillness that began to make its way through him. He thought at first that it was due to the fact they had taken away his clothes, leaving him only with a flea-infested blanket to wrap around himself between sessions. But the chill was greater than that. It settled into his bones, and then into his heart, and then the day came when he began to cooperate with his rapists, giving the men what they wanted before they asked. 

The guards lost interest in him after that. It was not as though there weren't other fields to plow, and he, precisely because he was so well-plowed, had become a field for diseases. He'd had six diseases so far, he thought, though none of them had killed him. Yet. 

There came a period in time when the visits from the guards lessened, and almost – almost – the embers of his pride had begun to flicker again. But then a change had taken place in his life – a turning he had not anticipated – and an ingenious guard thought of a new way to exploit the situation. 

And so after that came a string of strangers, men who had paid good money for this opportunity to visit him. They were worse, because most of them had no interest in raping him. They wanted to hurt him: to hurt him with their fists and boots, and to hurt him more with their words. 

The words always had him sobbing at the end, which took the men aback. If they had seen him before, it had been at his trial, when his head had been held high and he had spoken with bold defiance, a triumphant smile on his face. It was this image that the visitors held of him, and some of them failed to notice that the youth they were beating was a usurper: not the proud young man they hated, but the fragile, defeated creature that had taken over the young man's body. He wondered sometimes, dimly, whether the proud young man had died. 

When the visitors finally realized what he now was, they lost interest in him, just as the guards had. Some of them looked satisfied at the outcome, others disappointed. At any rate, the time would come when they failed to return, and a new exchange of money took place, and a new visitor set forth to break him. 

What began to break him in the end was not words. Quite the opposite. 

It was the same devilishly ingenious guard who thought up this plan. He must have been pleased at the results. For as the months wore on, it became clear that the last remaining fortitude in the youth was beginning to fail. The youth wondered when it would occur to the guards that, if they wanted their plan to be most effective, all they need do is stop the visitors from coming. 

For now, though, greed kept the guards to their present path, and as the youth knelt shivering in his cell, awaiting his new visitor, he wondered whether this would be the one who would help him regain his courage. 

Or whether this would be the last one, and his breaking would be completed. 

He could hear the guards talking to the visitor now, making last-moment arrangements of the price; he knew that the visitor was a new one because the wordless rumble of his voice was unfamiliar. The youth wondered what the rumble would sound like with words, and he found that he was shifting restlessly, as though seeking a comfortable place. 

There could be no comfortable place when one was kneeling naked upon cold flagstones. The guards had not required him to kneel; the youth had added that himself, having learned that matters were likely to go easier for him if he appeared submissive from the start. He ran his dry tongue over his lips in a nervous twitch, then more carefully touched the softness within his mouth, searching for sores. He found none there and abandoned the search, satisfied. He was rarely taken at the other end these days – he thought the guards, out of some faint sense of honor that prevented them from selling damaged goods at a full price, had taken to warning the visitors about the dangers there. Besides – he thought, looking down at himself – the dangers were clear enough, from the pus-filled sores upon him. So far his mouth had escaped the same fate, but if he lost the capacity to pay his debt even with his mouth . . . 

The cell door swung open with a moan; he kept his eyes lowered, trying to steady his suddenly rapid breath. Already he could feel the shivers passing through his body, entering the place where his pride had once burned fierce, but which had been nothing more than dead ashes for many months now. 

The boots made their way steadily across the floor as the door moaned shut again, the shadow-shrouded body blending with the dark, rough stones of the walls and the dirt-smeared floor. Then the visitor passed into the dim light that fell from the crack of a window high above, and the youth could see the calfskin boots, the gold-studded belt, the tight breeches, and, most clearly of all, the flash of crystal wound about the man's ring-finger. 

A lord. It did not surprise him; most of the men who had visited him here had been lords or lord-kin. That was why he was here, after all. He kept his gaze cast below the belt. In the chill cell, sweat was beginning to form now on his neck, running down his back and between his bound wrists. 

"Lord," he said softly, "I would be glad to pay to you my debt in any way I can." 

There was no reply; he had not expected there to be – not in words. But he kept his gaze focussed on the spot under the belt, and there, within a few seconds of his speech, he saw the movement that he had hoped for. He bent swiftly forward and kissed the shape forming there. 

The lord moved back, so abruptly that the youth nearly kissed open air, but he was in time to feel the soft fabric brush his lips, and behind it the hardness. With his heart pounding, the youth settled back on his haunches and said, without looking up, "My mouth has no diseases, lord. You may inspect it if you wish. And I would do nothing to hurt you – the guards would kill me if I did." This was not entirely true – the guards valued too highly the money he earned them – but it was close enough to the truth, as he had discovered during his first week here. He finished by saying rapidly, "I have nothing else to give you, lord, but I would be glad to give you this, if it would please you." 

Still there was no reply. The man had not moved out of reach of the youth, and his hands were clenched in fists; the youth could only hope that this was not a forewarning of what he intended to do next. Taking a chance, the youth leaned forward once more. 

This time the lord did not draw back. The youth let his kiss linger on the bulge in the cloth; it was like kissing iron left out in the noonday sun, so hard and hot had the flesh become. He could hear the lord's breath now, rapid. 

He dared not break the spell by speaking again. Instead, without moving his lips, he raised his hands. During his first three months, the guards had bound his hands behind his back, until it reached the point where they realized he was straining, not to break his bonds, but to make use of his hands for their pleasure. Laughing, they had rebound his hands in the front, and that was how he was now: with his hands bound palm against palm. 

It was an awkward position in which to untie the square flap of the breeches, particularly as he dared not remove his lips. His back was beginning to ache now from leaning forward, but he ignored the pain, knowing it to be minor in comparison to what would come. 

The flap came free. In the manner of lords, his visitor wore no undergarment: the swelling flesh tumbled out, bobbed a moment, then pointed straight toward him like a dagger. 

He had pulled back momentarily, and he swallowed, contemplating the weapon before him. He knew from experience that size was not the greatest factor in what would follow; what mattered most was how deeply the visitor would enter, and how furiously. He waited to see whether the lord would show his preference at once, but the man before him did not move, so the youth leaned forward again and kissed the tip of the thick blade. 

It bobbed again, evidently pleased by this service. It was red and clean – one of the few advantages of the visitors over the guards was that they were usually clean, in the manner of lords. It was from the guards that he had received his diseases; running a practiced eye over the soft blade he kissed, the youth emitted an inward sigh as he realized that no disease would come to his mouth from this man. 

The blade was clean, but from the furry hilt ahead came the musky scent that always brought sickness to the youth. He forced himself to swallow down the bitter liquid in his throat, and tried not to think of the bitter liquid that would fill his throat and mouth in time. 

He tried kissing the raised edge of the tip, and the dagger bobbed again; it seemed easy to please. The man's hands remained clenched, but the youth tried to ignore that, slowly making his way along the top and sides of the blade pointed at him. The bottom was harder: he had to rise up on his toes at the same time he lowered his back. But he took care not to miss any part of what was offered him. 

The man still had not given any indication, with either words or touches, as to whether he was growing impatient. With his stomach clenching in uncertainty, the youth replaced his lips with his tongue, retracing the path he had taken before. The lord's breath was heavier now, ragged; pleased with himself, the youth reached forward with his hands to touch the bottom of the furry hilt. 

It was a mistake; the lord jerked back, and for a moment all that the youth could see were the lord's hands, clenched into hard hammers. The youth's legs began to shake, and he had to spend a moment concentrating his effort on not losing his balance. But after a moment passed and it became clear that he would not be punished for his error, the youth was encouraged enough to slide forward to the lord, ignoring the shredding this caused to his knees. 

He had waited too long, he decided. This was not for him but for the lord; he should not be dawdling on the acts that he found less painful. Slowly, so that the lord would know that he was not a threat, he slid the soft sheath of his mouth over the dagger. 

Almost at once he felt the lord's hand touch his head, and he went rigid, trying to prepare himself for the pain that would follow. But the lord appeared to have no desire to push the youth's head forward, nor to plunge his dagger deeper; he seemed contented to let the sheath move at its own pace. The youth took the dagger in till he felt it tickle the back of his throat; clenching his throat to prevent himself from voicing the spasm, he slowly slid back. The lord's light hand was beginning to stroke his hair. 

Never before had anyone petted him. Soaring with encouragement, the youth paused at the tip and looked up. 

The lord was younger than the youth had thought, perhaps in his late twenties. His chest was thrown out, his doublet rising and falling with each heavy breath. He wore a chain upon his chest that sparkled with the same crystal as the ring, though the crystals were strangely blackened. His beard was trimmed short and was the same dark color as the fur of the hilt. The color of his eyes the youth could not see, for the lord's head was thrown back, and his eyes were closed. 

This was the most encouraging sign the youth had received in weeks. He drew back his lips from the dagger, and with a tremulous voice he asked, "Would you like me to use my tongue while you are inside my mouth, lord?" 

There was no reply, and the youth felt his stomach clench cold with disappointment. He tried to ignore it, as he tried to ignore the moisture forming at the corners of his eyes; his task was not done yet. He leaned forward. 

And in the moment that his lips touched the dagger-tip, he heard faintly the whisper, "Yes." 

He had to close his own eyes then, as the dizziness drove through him in great waves. One hundred and ninety-eight days. That was how long it had been since anyone had responded to him. 

It was not as though his visitors lacked words. That was why most of them had paid to come here: to hurt him with their words, to take verbal vengeance upon him for what he had done. They would stride up and down the cell, looking across at him – or looking down at his broken figure, depending on how their visit had begun – as they shouted and screamed at him and sometimes, most terrible of all, wept. 

But the words were all in one direction. Some of his early visitors had responded to his questions or his choked apologies, but the devilish guard had put a stop to that. Now all of his visitors were instructed that part of his punishment required that the visitors take no note of anything he said. And the visitors, who were still tender from his words at his trial, gratefully complied. 

One hundred and ninety-eight days. A single word at the end of those days. It was enough; the youth felt relief rebuilding a short wall within him, giving him the courage to continue. With gratitude shining within him, the youth did what he would have done in any case: twirling his tongue along the silken underside of the blade, he ignored the barrier at the back of his throat and plunged the dagger deeper. 

The pain came at once, causing his tears to spring free and travel down his cheeks. He had thought many times that there must be a trick to doing this, a way to relax the muscles of his throat so that the visitors' daggers slid in easily. But he had no one to teach him the trick, and so he felt what he felt every time: the burning of his flesh as his throat was torn by the weapon ramming its way slowly toward his gut. 

He was choking now, and he sought to hold back the accompanying sound: some of his visitors liked to hear his suffering, but others resented the distraction. He wished desperately that the lord with the crystal ring and the light hand would offer some indication of which way he liked it, for it was becoming harder now to hold the sounds within. The youth pushed his sheath further up toward the hilt, and the burning, scraping bite of the dagger caused a sob to escape his control. 

Then the lord did move, but in the opposite direction the youth had expected, pulling himself out all the way. The youth wiped his hands rapidly across his eyes, trying to free his blurring vision from the tears, then he looked up apprehensively at the lord. The lord was staring down at him, unmoving. 

The youth had thought, in the moment of the dagger's withdrawal, that he had chosen an angle that hurt the lord; if so, he would simply be placed at the proper angle, with perhaps a swift punishment in the interval. But the lord did not move, and the youth, with a spring of the heart, realized why. It had been months since this had last happened, but he did not hesitate: scraping his knees raw, he whirled about and flung his face onto the grimy flagstones, presenting his second sheath to the lord. 

Even as he did so, he felt the rigidness return to his body in anticipation of the greater pain this sheathing would cause. Yet his mind was not on the pain but in apprehension of whether the lord fully understood what he was doing. Surely the lord had been warned by the guards, and if not, surely the youth's body made the danger plain. If the lord proceeded, it must be because he received pleasure from entering into danger – or perhaps he had brought one of the thin membranes that some of the lords were foresightful enough to armor themselves with. 

He waited, his body strained taut. His face was hidden within the narrow crack between his upper arms, his bound wrists were further along on the floor, his knees were beginning to sing pain now from their misuse, and his privates were shrivelled, either from the cold or from the anticipation. 

When the touch came, it was not at the youth's sheath, but at his shoulder: he was wrenched into a sitting position and flung into the nearby corner; the side of his face hit the sharp edge of one of the wall-stones. He could not forbear from crying out, and he flung his arms up automatically to protect his face, even as his legs, through long experience, doubled up to shield his privates. 

When he peered past his arms, though, he discovered that the lord was standing out of reach, glaring down at him like an oak threatening to fall and crush him. His visitor said, "Do you think you can pay me for what you've done by offering me your disease-ridden body?" 

He shook his head mutely from behind the arms he dared not lower, even though this response required him to contradict all his painful work of the previous minutes. The lord's face was as red as his blade had been, the latter now hidden behind the flap of his breeches. The youth, biting his lip to keep from crying out, waited for the blow to fall. 

It came; the man, in a voice much quieter than before, said, "Did you see their bodies?" 

The youth had no chance to respond, and even before the lord turned his head away, the youth knew that no response was wanted. The lord had reached the point now where he was prepared to throw the jagged stones of his anger, and it made no difference to him where the stones fell or how great the wounding was. The youth, resting his elbows upon his knees, hid his face within his arms. 

The shield was too small; he could still see the lord striding back and forth, caught within his memories. "A five-year-old girl," the lord said. "She was trying to dig her way through the earthen floor – her jaw was still open in a scream. A nine-year-old boy. He was huddled in a ball on the floor – all that remained of him were his blackened bones. An eleven-year-old girl shielding an eleven-year-old boy – they were dearhearts to each other, making dreamy-eyed plans for the day when their parents would let them wed. They were on the floor as well, trying to escape the smoke. Shall I go on to tell you how the others died?" Again he did not wait for an answer, but said instead, "One young man there didn't try to escape. He was much older than the rest, and he was standing, trying to hold a seven-year-old girl high enough that she could clamber up the wall and reach the trap door to the attic, perhaps escaping that way. They were still in that position when the fire reached them." 

The youth was shaking now; he closed his eyes, but the tears continued to well out, or they travelled down his throat, clogging his breathing. The lord, heedless, continued to stride. 

"I knew even before I saw the chain I had given him that the tall body belonged to my brother," he said. "That was what he was like. He was younger than me, but he might as well have been the elder – he taught me everything I know about the generosity of love. I was not the only one he gifted with his love – he overflowed with it, like a never-ending fountain." 

The visitor's boots tapped with precise hardness upon the flagstones as he walked; nearby, a rat scurried into a crack in the wall, discouraged from entering the cell while this stranger was present. The muffled voices of the guards could be heard as they passed by in their patrol of the prison; further away, faintly, a prisoner gave a long, thin scream. 

The scream made the youth shiver further, but the visitor either did not notice or did not care; he said, "When Kipp came of age, our father had recently died, leaving me the heirship of his land and leaving Kipp most of his money – anything less would have been injustice, considering how Kipp had cared for him during his illness. Everyone expected Kipp to take the money and buy a titled marriage or an estate or, if he was more venturesome, spend his life in travels. Only our estate caretaker was unsurprised when Kipp handed the money to me and stayed on to help me run my estate. 

"It was what he was: he could not leave me alone with my problems. Some people said we should have been twins. Others, more vicious-minded, said that Kipp and I were sharing more than brotherly love." 

The lord paused; the blackened crystal chain rose and fell upon his chest as he said carefully to the youth on the ground, "If he had wanted that from me, I would have given it to him. Does that shock you?" 

The youth shook his head from behind his arms. It was half a lie: he was shocked, though not by the lord's words – he had ceased to feel shock on any manner concerning the body around the end of his first week. His shock came rather from the fact that the lord had asked him a question, and appeared to be waiting for an answer. 

The lord remained silent a moment, staring down upon the youth, as though expecting him to speak. The youth still had his face half-hidden behind his arms; from the side of his face where blood was trickling, he could see half of the lord, looming over him like an avalanche about to fall. 

With his voice still drawn taut with anger, the lord said, "He did not ask it of me, nor I of him – my joy was complete in his companionship, without need for more. And it was the same everywhere he went: to the people he met, he was like a cool dipper of water upon a dry day, a warm blanket on a cold night." 

Suddenly he moved his arm in a whiplash fashion; the youth, shrinking further back against the slimy walls of the cell, caught a brief glimpse of something being taken from inside the lord's shirt; then a paper was thrust into the youth's face, hiding all sight of the lord. "Here!" said the lord's voice, disembodied beyond the paper. "This is what you took from the world. Do you truly think that anything you can give me could repay me for the loss of this?" 

It was a sketch, done in lead without coloring, such as artists make when preparing a study for a painting. The strokes of the lead were brisk and sure, softening only in their depiction of the persons at the center of the picture. 

The drawing showed a garden hedged with holly bushes; snow fell lightly through the sky and blanketed the pliant grass below. Under the snowdrops were two cloaked figures: one was the lord, though he was beardless and looked younger in the picture. He was standing behind the second figure and had his arms flung around him; his chin was resting upon his companion's shoulder, and a smile was on his face. 

The figure in front of him was younger, about the age of the youth. He wore a familiar chain of clear crystals about his neck. He was holding a small bag in his hand and throwing something from it – as the drawing was without color, the youth could not tell what was being cast, but the objects floated through the air like feathers. 

The sunlight was full upon the young man's face. Youthful though he was, lines of laughter already creased the corners of his eye, giving his eyes a look of wisdom beyond his age; his mouth, relaxed, was upturned in laughter or joy. He was leaning back into his companion's embrace. 

The youth felt his mouth tremble; then the hot tears became a flood, melting the remaining hard dirt encasing his cheeks. He squeezed his eyes shut in his effort to control his sobs; the lord must have seen the flicker of movement, for in the next moment the youth felt his arms being jerked painfully aside as the lord shouted, "Damn you for the gutter snake you are – look at it! Don't hide from it!" 

The youth's immediate instinct was to fling his arms back in place as a fragile protection against the blow he knew would follow next. He realized in time that he must not do that. This was part of his payment, to allow the lord to do as he wished to the murderer of his beloved brother. The youth lowered his arms and waited, trembling. 

The lord stared at him. The youth wondered what he was seeing: he knew that his face was filthy, and the combination of blood and tears could only make his appearance more disgusting. Apparently the sight of the horror before him was too much for the lord, for after a moment he turned on his heel, swiftly made his way to the other end of the cell, and hammered upon the door. 

The youth struggled to rise to his feet and fell, sprawling upon the filthy flagstones. Pulling himself onto his knees, he cried, "Lord!" 

The lord looked back at him; behind the lord, the door opened and a guard stood in the entrance, frowning. 

"Lord," the youth said breathlessly, "I know that nothing I can give you can come close to paying back for what I took from you. But if you returned here . . . I could take away your thoughts of your pain for at least a little time . . ." 

The guard tugged discreetly at the lord, trying to prevent him from answering the youth. The lord ignored him; in a voice as chill as the prison cell, he said, "I don't want you." 

And then he was gone. The guard gave the youth a look that promised an appropriate response for the youth's success in luring the lord into conversation; then he stepped back, and the cell door slammed shut. 

The youth remained where he was, his body and mind numb. After a minute he stared down at himself. The dirt from the floor had turned him all black, nearly obscuring the disfiguring marks left by the guards and the previous visitors; the youth had been slender when he arrived at the prison, and now he was skinny, with his rib cage standing out in an unsightly fashion; worse still were the bites of fleas and ticks and rats across his body, and pus-oozing sores upon his groin. 

He was intelligent; he knew that ugly bodies often hide beautiful souls. Erik the Commoners' Soldier had been no great beauty, or so the songs said. 

But the lord with the light hand had seen into his soul, and had seen what lay there, and what he saw had filled him with such disgust that he had left forever. 

The youth's mouth began to tremble again; he flung himself back down onto the cold, hard flagstones and began to sob, his mouth choked with dust and his heart choked with despair. 

o—o—o

As the high window of the cell grew dark that night, the youth stood near the door, preparing to undertake his most courageous act of the day: making water. 

He always put the task off as long as possible, until the pressure from his bladder became unbearable. Laying his hands against the wall high above his head, and pressing his face into his arms, he began his daily torture. 

The first slice of pain as the water passed through him caused him to bite down on his flesh; the dirt on his arm tasted bitter. After a moment he grew used enough to the pain that he could look down at the golden liquid pouring out into the bucket below. He thought to himself that it might as well have been blood that he was releasing from his body. 

In the bucket, the creatures that had inhabited his meal were struggling feebly to stay afloat: he had picked them out of the bread in an automatic manner, thinking no more about that task than a housewoman thinks about laying the table. 

By the time he was through, he felt weak; he staggered away from the door, leaving the open bucket to be fetched by the guards or overturned by them, depending on their mood. His back still ached from the beating he had received earlier from the guard who had witnessed his conversation with the lord, but it had not been as bad as he had anticipated. Indeed, the pain of this night was likely to be far worse. 

Reaching the other end of the cell, he dropped to his knees, then realized belatedly that his cup and plate were still here. He picked them up awkwardly and carried them to the door, pausing to dip a finger into the cup, in order to see whether any liquid remained there. It was dry. Earlier, he had used the tepid, murky water to wash the wound on his face, though he doubted that the water was any cleaner than the dirt he was trying to wash away. That had left him with nothing to drink, and his mouth had been dry ever since he wetted the lord's dagger. He set down the cup and plate and made his way back to the far end of the cell, chewing upon the inside of his cheek to draw saliva, and worrying about his knees. There had not been enough water left to wash them; he could only hope they would not become tainted with disease, as some of his past wounds had. 

He reached the other end of the cell and stared down at his blanket. It was late winter, but he reserved the thin blanket for nighttime, in the desperate hope of teaching his body not to become chill during that time. It hadn't worked yet. Still chewing his cheek, he tried to decide whether to use the blanket for warmth or for comfort. It was a decision he made every night: the cloth could serve as a blanket or as a head-cushion, but it could not serve as both. 

Putting the decision aside, he walked over to the wall and crouched down beside it. Though the cell was dusk-dark, he could see the scratches near the ground which he had made for every day that he was there: close to a year now. He was beginning to run out of room for the marks. The remainder of the walls, as far up as could be reached by a tall man, were covered with scribblings from previous inhabitants of the cell: mainly curses and prayers, but one prisoner of a literary frame of mind had kept a single-line-a-day diary. His communications had cut off abruptly, shortly after an entry in which he reported feeling ill. 

The youth often wondered when his own marks would come to a halt. The thought filled him with fear, not only because he was terrified of dying, but because he was sure that he had not yet tried to pay back his debt for all the children he had killed. He had not needed to make marks to keep track of his debt payments: the children were vivid in his mind, and in his nightmares. 

He picked up the scratching rock and dropped it almost immediately; he fumbled trying to pick it up again. His hands had been numb from his first week of arrival; sometimes he would wake screaming from dreams in which he looked at his hands and found that the flesh had crumbled from them, so that the only part left was his skeleton. In desperation, he had once asked the guards to rebind his wrists so the rope was looser. His request had given the guards a week's worth of amusement. 

The mark made, he went back to the blanket and, in another automatic movement, rolled himself up in the cloth; he had become deft at such activity during the months that his hands were tied behind him. His arms no longer ached as much as they had during that time, but every other part of him did, especially his head, lying upon the hard stone. The pain would awaken him within a couple of hours, or the nightmares would, or the rat beginning to scuttle out of his hole for his nightly explorations; it was a dull-witted creature that, after long acquaintance with the youth, had still not realized that he would flail wildly if bitten. 

He lay there for a while, staring at the sill of the window above – it was too high up for him to see the sky or the stars. He was trying to ignore a crawling sensation he felt on his leg, as well as more wriggling taking place on his skull – it was a wonder to him that the lord with the light hand had been able to bear placing his hand there. Experimentally, he raised his hand and tried stroking his hair; after a minute he let his hand drop – it was not the same doing it to himself. 

With a sigh, he turned onto his side, raising his bound arms above him so that his head could be cradled between them. His thoughts had turned to Keven, as they often did. Theirs had been a bittersweet alliance – sweet at the beginning, bitter at the end. When finally the youth fell asleep, his ears echoing from the sounds of screams elsewhere in the prison, he dreamt of the beginning and the end.   
  

**CHAPTER TWO**

The other orphan boys called him "the bird boy." He acquired this nickname at age four, when he began to sneak out of his bed in the boys' cottage, early in the morning before the others awoke, to watch the birds come roosting upon the windowsill that overlooked the gated yard and the city streets. Soon he was bringing leftover crumbs from his meals to feed to them, and they would flock to the window as soon as they saw him. 

Of course the noise of their eager squawking eventually alerted the other boys to what was happening. Laughing, they encouraged him to throw stones at the birds; when he refused, they threw stones themselves, both at the birds and at him. The birds flew away, never to return, but his nickname stuck. So did his position as the bottom-most boy in the strict hierarchy of the orphans. 

He would likely have received that title in any case, for he was small and slight and gentle, but not graceful and pretty enough to make his gentleness win the hearts of others. Soon he was the favored victim in every game of roughplay; afterwards he would crawl into a dusty corner and cry, until he was pulled from the floor by the matrons and shouted at for dirtying his clothes. 

The matrons called him "you," and bellowed their commands at him to stand aside. He began to cringe whenever they walked by; only as he grew older did he become bold enough to ask when he would be released from the boys' cottage. The answer he received was sharp and noncommittal; gradually he realized that the matrons wished to keep him and all of the boys there as long as possible, for they received money from the lords to care for the boys. And so the youth added the lords to his long list of people who imprisoned him. 

In the evenings, when the matrons had locked them all away in their upper-storey dormitory, the boys would softly sing songs of defiance together, for the youth was not the only one who endured the matrons' heavy hands. Their favorite songs were about Erik the Commoners' Soldier, who fought against the evil lords of his land. Several of the songs told the tale of how Erik, while freeing the commoners from their oppression, was flung into a dark prison and languished there until his friends found a way to help him escape. 

Sitting in his dusty corner, the youth used to imagine himself as Erik, awaiting the moment of release. But he vaguely felt that he did not deserve such release, for he had done nothing to help the commoners. 

He was an innocent boy in many ways, so innocent that he did not fully understand the nature of the changes taking place in his body. All he knew was that he was approaching manhood, but what that meant was a mystery to him; he had never been outside the boundaries of the cottage wall during all his years of memory, nor had he ever seen a man other than the hateful lords who would occasionally visit the boys, say something stiffly to them, then vanish within minutes, leaving them to their captivity. 

Once, driven by a need he did not understand, he had touched himself, but as fortune chose, a matron saw him doing it and beat him with a hard rod reserved for the worst offenses. After that, he was terrified to put his hand anywhere near his lap, and he failed to decipher the meaning of the looks that a few of the boys were beginning to cast toward him. Even the sounds that came from some of the other beds, when one boy would crawl in with another, were a lacuna in his book of knowledge. 

He was enlightened one stormy night when, under cover of the crack and rumble of thunder, several of the boys dragged him into his favorite dusty corner and proceeded to teach him, in the lengthiest lesson he had ever learned, what various parts of his body could be used for. 

In the end, they let him go, with a whisper that they would return the next night. He huddled for three hours in the corner, trying to imagine some way to escape from his torturers, but he knew of no one in his life – not the scornful boys, not the harsh matrons, not the indifferent lords – who would care what happened to him. 

So he jumped out the window. 

He landed, as he had hoped, in a hedge below the window; though he was scraped deep by the branches and prickly leaves, he was able to extract himself sobbing from the bush. He then scrambled over the gate, which had cracks in the wood too tiny to be of use to a grown man or woman, but which were just the right size for him to grip with his bare hands and feet. He had no idea where he would go or how he would earn his living without papers to prove his schooling, but he knew that he would rather die in the streets than endure once more what he had undergone that night. 

Three weeks later, Keven found him dying in the streets. 

He did not remember being carried out of the streets or taken into the house with barred windows and a door that was opened only when a whispered password was given. Gradually he came to realize that he was with a group of men and women who were in hiding, so that it was vital that he not speak loudly. He remained quiet, this being no great effort. In time, Keven came to him, giving him the name of his benefactor. 

He had heard of Keven, for even the boys' cottage, shut off from the world, had heard of the general of the Commoners' Army; rumor had it that the army, modelling itself after Erik, would bring freedom to the oppressed commoners. Now, the youth learned with wonder, he was being asked to become a soldier like Erik. 

It was made clear to him, in a straightforward manner, that he had no choice: the soldiers of the Commoners' Army could not allow traitors among them, and he owed Keven a debt for saving his life. He did not take in what the others implied about his alternative; he was too caught up in gratitude at being permitted to take part in such a noble enterprise. He felt obliged to stammer out to Keven the shameful confession that he had no talents, for he had done poorly in his schooling, and his body was ill-suited for heavy labor. 

"No matter," said the general. "I have just the work for you." 

So he began his training as an assassin. He was well-picked for the task, being quiet and inconspicuous in his movements and deft with his hands. Most of all, he was small; he would be able to slip through any windows that the lords had unwisely left open, thinking that no man could enter through so small a passage. 

And there was also the fact that Keven found him easily trainable and biddable. He did not realize until afterwards how important that was. 

Keven called him "lad." The general of the Commoners' Army was stern with him, but no more so than with any of the other soldiers. The other soldiers were rather wild and rough – understandably, since all of them were outlaws, having defied the lords in some fashion and then fled for their lives. They treated the youth as a companion in persecution, having heard how he was cared for in the cottage run by the lords. Their voices were filled with fire, speaking of the evils that the lords did and how the commoners must rise up against them. The youth did his best to emulate them. 

In the evenings, after singing songs about Erik, Keven would give the outlaws visions of the world that would come once the lords had been eliminated. There would be no more poverty, no more sickness, no more back-breaking work or troubled times. Above all, there would be peace and love and joy among the commoners. It was akin to the dreams that the youth had held when imprisoned in the boys' cottage; his chest swelled with pride when he thought of his own role in this enterprise. 

He was shaken when he learned, at the end of his training, that he was to kill children. But Keven patiently explained to him that this was the easiest way for their small band to bring about the changes needed for a world run by the commoners. By law, only a titled lord or his true-born son or the husband of his true-born daughter could inherit a lord's property. If they killed all of the lords' children, then when the lords died, no one would be left to inherit the property, and the commoners would be free of the lords' oppression. Besides, Keven pointed out, the children would grow up to be lords and mothers of lords. 

It all made sense to the youth; having lived in the boys' cottage, he had no strange fancies about the innocence and sweetness of children. The lords' children were his enemies, just as the boys in the cottage had been, and he must kill them before they grew up to oppress the commoners. 

Keven gave him a choice of assassination methods, and he chose dry-leaf. It was a painless poison: four drops would send the recipient into a sleeping death, and five drops would bring death itself. Keven approved of the choice, for dry-leaf was commonly used in smaller doses to relieve sleeplessness; if the child was discovered to have died from dry-leaf, it would be assumed that he or she had swallowed medicine intended for wiser elders. 

The months that followed were the most joyous in the youth's life. Every night he would slip into nurseries or adjoining pantries and place five drops of dry-leaf in the water or watered wine that was meant for the children. He never looked at the hateful faces of the children he was killing; he did not want to be reminded of his days at the boys' cottage. But he would hear afterwards, from Keven's reports, of how successful his work was. 

He had single-handedly created a campaign of terror. At first it was thought by the lords and lord-kin that the poisonings were accidental; their supplies of dry-leaf were locked away or taken from the homes. But as the poisonings continued, it became apparent that murder was creeping into the nurseries. The lords desperately barred the windows and removed the pitchers of water and watered wine, but to no avail: the youth was skilled at finding the one, tiny opening that had been neglected, and he would search the nursery until he found the stash of food that rich children always seemed to be hiding from their parents. He would insert the drops of dry-leaf into these, using a needle, and soon afterwards the door of another lordly house would be painted black and purple, to indicate that a violent death had taken place in the household. 

No one knew who had committed the murders; though the Commoners' Army was suspected, the whereabouts of the army was mere rumor. Fear ate its way through the lords' estates like an uncontrollable flame. 

After six months, Keven decided that the time had come to openly proclaim to the world that the Commoners' Army was waging a war of freedom. This, the general believed, would cause other commoners to rally to their cause, and bring a quick end to the war. There was open talk among the outlaws now of a bloody day of revolution, when all of the lords and their kin would be slaughtered. 

On a brisk day in early spring, a select band of the Commoners' Soldiers made their way to an estate house just outside the city, where a few of the lords were attempting to raise their spirits by holding a spring-coming celebration. The soldiers did not go near the house; instead, they waited in a grove nearby, close to a clearing where a playing-cottage had been erected for the lords' children. The soldiers spent their time whispering to each other their anger that lords' children should be given cottages for mere play, when thousands of commoners lived in the streets. 

The children arrived finally, gaily decorated with pussywillow puffs in their hair. In past years, they would have come alone, but the lords had become more cautious, and the children were accompanied by three young men. Two of them, armed with daggers, took up posts outside, while the third, unarmed, accompanied the children into the house. 

The soldiers killed the sentries within seconds. It was done exactly the way Keven had planned: arrows were shot through their throats, so that the young men would not be able to call out the alarm. The soldiers sent a volley of arrows into the cottage next, but the young man there quickly closed and barred the door and window shutters, so quickly that he did not have time to give more than a sharp cry for assistance. The lords and lord-kin, relaxed in their revels, failed to hear. 

All of this was as Keven had planned it. The general waved a hand, and some of the soldiers darted up to the cottage and nailed shut the door and shutters. Keven remained behind, preparing the flame. 

The youth received the privilege of torching the cottage. It excited him beyond words, not the least because the cottage, with its high attic, reminded him of the cottage he had grown up in. He carefully lit the fire at each corner of the house, then stood with the other outlaws, smiling into the light and warmth as though it were a hearthfire on a winter's day. 

Keven, who was standing behind him, gripped the youth's shoulder with painful tightness. The youth felt this as a sign of approval; he was barely aware of the screams within the cottage. He did register, in a faint manner, that the young man was pleading, asking that the children be spared. He himself, he said, would be willing to die in their place, in any manner the killers wished . . . 

The youth thought about those words afterwards, when lying in the holding cell he had been placed in. The young man had not acted in the manner that lords or lord-kin were supposed to act, and he wondered whether he had killed a commoner by mistake. But he knew from the songs about Erik that the lords were often helped by traitorous commoners, and such commoners deserved to die as well. 

He could hear from the nearby holding cells the angry cries of the other outlaws who had been arrested along with him when the magistrates' soldiers had unexpectedly swooped down upon the band and arrested everyone they could catch. Keven had escaped, the youth knew, and he was grateful that the revolution would continue without him. The outlaws were shouting now about the injustice of their arrest, though they were evasive about whether they had done anything that might have prompted such arrests. 

The youth remained quiet; he was reserving his words for the trial. 

The officials in the judging room called him "the prisoner." By the time the youth arrived before the magistrate, the other outlaws had been sent to their deaths. The youth was disappointed; he had hoped to save their lives by directing the magistrate's wrath to himself. But it made no difference: though he had heard that the other outlaws had pleaded their innocence, the youth had no desire to do so. 

So the youth told the magistrate and the listening crowd attending the trial of what he had done on the day of the fire. He did not speak of the earlier assassinations, only because he was unsure Keven would want him to, but he spoke with pride of Erik the Commoners' Soldier, and of the way in which the deaths of the lords' children would serve to free the oppressed commoners. He was smiling before he had gone far in his speech. 

The magistrates' soldiers had trouble keeping order amongst the listeners; there were continual cries of anger and vengeance from the lords and their kin. The youth took no notice of them; he was directing his speech toward the commoners whom he knew must have crowded into the judging room to see their savior, and he kept his eye on the magistrate, to see whether the magistrate would demonstrate any shame at his part in upholding the lords' oppression. 

The magistrate had cool eyes and a rasping voice. He showed no sign of shame. When the time came for sentence to be passed – there was no longer any question of determining the youth's guilt – the magistrate said in a voice as dry as dry-leaf, "Our law says that any man who murders or rapes another must pay that debt with his life. You reached your manhood last year, and since that time you have killed fifteen people, fourteen of them children. By all the laws of justice, you ought to pay fifteen times over for what you have done." 

He paused, only because the judging room had filled with a chorus of agreement rising from the audience. When silence had been reached once more, the magistrate said, "However, I have taken into account your youth—" 

He stopped; no one could have spoken over the roar of outrage that arose. With difficulty, the soldiers settled the roar down to a rumble; raising his voice, the magistrate said, "I have taken into account your youth, and the fact that you have clearly been used as a tool by others. Anyone hearing your testimony can see, or should see" – he shot a look as sharp as an arrow at the restless crowd – "that you do not fully understand what you have done. This being the case, I am willing to place a debt price upon you." 

He named a figure, so high that even the lords and lord-kin gasped. The grumbles continued, but in a more subdued fashion than before. 

The magistrate looked about the judging room expectantly. "Well?" he said. "Better that one of you should pay the debt price than that this youth should idle uselessly. Put to work, he will be forced to pay back at least a small portion of what he owes for the deaths, and the money you spend on the debt price will go to worthy causes, such as improving the quality of our boys' cottages." He cast a dark glance toward the matron who had seen the youth hustled through the streets on the day of his arrest, and then had come forward to testify to what a vicious and heartless child he had been. 

The magistrate's eye roved over the silent crowd; so did the youth's. He could see the commoners now, but none of them seemed pleased by his tale; they all looked as angry as the lords and lord-kin. Perhaps they were the commoners who helped the lords, but for the first time the youth felt an uncertainty, then a sickness to his stomach as the silence lengthened. 

It was a very great debt price, he knew, and no single commoner could have paid it. But surely the commoners who loved Erik would band together to pay his price; or if not, the Commoners' Army would draw from the money they had been stockpiling from dozens of thief-raids. Someone would pay his debt price – someone who had heard what he had done for the commoners and loved him for it . . . 

The magistrate gave a deep sigh. "Very well," he said, gesturing to his soldiers to come forward. "Until the prisoner's debt price shall be paid, he will be placed in the debtors' prison. Though it is a waste to let a murderer languish in prison—" 

The youth heard nothing more; as he was being pulled toward the door that would take him to the debtors' prison, he had finally caught sight of someone he knew: Keven, standing inconspicuously near a window overlooking the execution yard. As the youth passed, Keven looked his way— 

Then looked away again, indifferent. The general's gaze returned to where the final execution was taking place. 

The youth tried to think it through as he was dragged, dumb and numb, through the streets between the furious crowds. Was Keven angry at him for telling the magistrate how the fire had been set? Or should he have spoken with pride of his earlier assassinations? Or perhaps the general was disappointed with him for not being executed. Perhaps the debt he owed to Keven required that he sacrifice his life . . . 

A stone hit him, and then another, thrown by the angry commoners lining the streets. The youth had no time to understand the reason for this attack; cursing under the volley of stones, the magistrates' soldiers threw him through the door into the prison. 

o—o—o

The guards called him names, but not of the sort he could repeat. The youth was unsurprised to be raped; in his mind, locked doors were inextricably connected with terrible things done in dusty corners. He struggled at first, though, a fateful decision since it led to his hands being bound. Then he lay passive, rebelling only in his mind; and then even his mind could not take in what was happening. He was Erik, he remembered; he was waiting in prison to be rescued . . . 

On a night five months after his arrival, in a cell with no light and no sound but for the grunting of the guard atop him, it came to the youth suddenly that the pain he was feeling must be akin to the pain the children had felt when they were dying. 

He screamed, so loudly that the guard was unable to finish. The youth barely noticed the beating that followed; his mind was being torn asunder by the dark realization of what the magistrate had meant, and why the commoners had thrown stones at him. 

For three days he lay curled in a ball, refusing all food and drink, until the guards, not wishing to trouble themselves in explaining a corpse to the magistrates, placed a hollow, flexible reed down his throat and forced the water in that way. The youth was no stranger by now to a bruised and bloody throat, but the renewed pain in his throat triggered a thought. No one would ever pay his debt – he knew that now. But what if he were to try to pay his own debt? 

He asked the guards whether he might have permission to see the lords and lord-kin he had wronged. They laughed, but his question triggered the reckonings of one of the cleverer guards, and soon afterwards the first visitor arrived, having paid the guards for this privilege. The youth did his best to pay his debt to the visiting lord-kin, spent the rest of the day weeping, and then told the guards the names of the other children he had killed. 

They did not believe him; it made no sense to them that he would freely admit to his crimes. But it was of indifference to them whether he was telling the truth or not; soon more visitors arrived, asking whether it was true that he had killed their children. 

And so it continued. There was no joy, no peace and love, none of the things he had been promised by Keven. There was only the small, bleak awareness that he was paying his debt back, much in the manner that a young child, having witlessly drained an ocean, will try to refill it with his own blood, drop by bitter drop.   
  

**CHAPTER THREE**

A fortnight after his meeting with the lord with the light hand, the youth lay listening to the screams elsewhere in the prison, as he uttered gasping sobs into the dirty flagstones. He was sure that the rib that had snapped was boring its way into his lung. 

The lord with the light hand had not returned, of course. He had been replaced by a man who said he was the eldest brother of one of the murdered children, though which child the man resolutely refused to say, leaving the youth with the frustration of not knowing to whom he was repaying his debt. The man seemed contented at first to pace up and down the cell, shouting at the youth, but his accusations of wrongdoing were so broad that the youth began to realize, with an unpleasant tickling down his spine, that the guards had widened their merchantwork yet further and were now selling him to visitors who were of no relation to the children but who were angry at what the youth had done. 

The youth was still trying to decide whether he was required to pay his debt that far when the man, without warning, seized him by the hair, threw him headfirst against the wall, and proceeded to try to kill him. 

The youth wasn't sure how the guards had known that his screams were of a different nature this time. At any rate, they had burst into the cell, dragged the incipient murderer off of the youth, and sent him on his way. Perhaps they simply didn't want the magistrates to start a murder investigation in their prison. More likely they disliked having their goods so badly damaged that the goods could not be resold to a new buyer. 

So now the youth awaited the prison physician, and he knew he would have a long wait. The physician had taken up work at a prison because he was preparing an important treatise about the growth cycle of blue-winged larvae, and he required the light duties of prisoner-healing to accomplish his task. His duties had not turned out to be so light as he had been promised, and he had dealt with this unexpected turn of events by pretending that his promise of light duties had been fulfilled: he responded only to messages of the gravest injuries. 

The physician had explained this on his last visit to the youth's cell, and had made clear to the youth that, if he were so careless as to break any bones again, the physician would not be in any hurry to return. The course of science would suffer if the physician continued to be interrupted from his work on the treatise. 

It was the physician whose grumbling remarks had confirmed to the youth that the screams of prisoners in the other cells had their origins with the guards, though the youth gathered that he was the only prisoner who merited the privilege of being sold to outsiders. Even if the physician took his normal leisurely time in arriving to visit the youth, he might have half a dozen other cells to visit first. The youth smothered another sob against the dusty floor, then forced himself to sit up against the corner. 

It was no less painful that way; he had not been able to find a comfortable position to wait in, and he continued to fear that, if he breathed too strongly, the splintered bone would pierce his lung. Biting his lip, he tried to rest his mind on the most pleasant thought possible, and, as in every day of the past fortnight, he thought of the lord with the light hand. 

He ought to be grateful, he knew, that the lord had not returned. Most likely that meant the lord was satisfied with the payment he had given and had no need for further payment. The youth tried to imagine the lord standing amidst the holly hedges, peacefully warming himself in the early spring air, but that picture was missing the joyful young man, and so the youth gave up the effort. 

Sweat from the pain trickled down his back, causing him to itch where he could not scratch, and making his chill body colder. Outside the prison, he knew, the air must be delightfully mild, but his cell was always cold, even in midsummer. Now, in the early days of spring, his cell was as frigid as though the year was at winter-coming; he closed his eyes and thought again of the light hand. 

The cell door slamming shut seized him from his thoughts. He opened his eyes eagerly, expecting to see the physician, but the only man there was one of the guards, the one with the devilish cunning. The guard was holding something small in his hand. 

He came to crouch beside the youth, who shrank back against the wall. The guard's face was a mingling of distaste and anger; the fierceness of his look caused the youth to breathe heavier, so that his broken rib stabbed over and over at his lung. 

Finally, wordlessly, the guard held up the object in his hand. It was a tiny cup, such as was used to administer medicine; the youth awkwardly took it into his cupped hands and then held it up to sniff it. 

He lowered the cup hastily, his lungs now heaving, regardless of any consequences. The scent was so faint that he doubted any other prisoner would have recognized it, but he had lived with the scent for half a year. He knew what he held. 

He looked at the guard, his throat working in a wordless plea, but the guard's face was implacable. The youth remembered the reed down his throat. With his hands shaking now, the youth lifted the cup to his lips and drank its contents. 

The guard waited until he had finished, briefly inspected the empty cup, and then left the cell, slamming the door on his way out. The youth remained where he had been before, propped against the corner, wondering who had paid for his death. 

He thought he knew. Only one of his visitors would have granted the youth the painless death of dry-leaf, and he must have paid a great deal to do so, for it was clear that the guard was angry at this loss of income. The youth thought to himself that this was the most concern anyone had ever shown in him: to pay great money for his murder. It was as good as having someone come forward to pay his debt price. 

So he thought; and then his face crumpled, like a piece of paper falling to ashes in the fire, and his sobs returned. He slid down onto the floor, ignoring now the sharp pain that was of no importance, and feeling the heaviness come upon him. Five drops, he thought. He hoped that the guard had used five drops rather than four, as the youth did not care for the idea of lingering in a sleeping death in a place like this. Perhaps the lord would bury him in the holly garden . . . 

This was so ridiculous an idea that the youth began to laugh within his sobs, pressing his face once more against the dust. His bound hands were close to his head, and he tried to catch hold of a strand of hair. He heard his mind say to the lord, _I wish you had given me the poison yourself. If you had stroked my hair again, I would not have minded . .._

His hands fell, his thoughts were replaced by emptiness, and he was drawn into the darkness of death.


	2. Harvest

**_Debt Price_ 2**   
**HARVEST**

>    
> "How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks."
> 
> —Dorothy L. Sayers: _Gaudy Night._

  
**CHAPTER FOUR**

The darkness was warm. It enfolded him like a blanket on a chill winter's eve, and he snuggled more deeply into it, seeking the heart of its comfort. It was soft around him, like the breast of a mother; he gave a sigh of contentment. The only irritant in this warm, dark womb was a slight nagging, a slight feeling of something being amiss, something he should correct. 

He scratched his elbow. 

The shock of what he had done sent him scrambling out of the warmth, sitting bolt upright. For a moment all he could see was light, harsh upon his eyes; then he felt white pain follow, striking at his chest with fierce repetition. 

He closed his eyes, wrapped his shaking arms about his chest, and tried to make sense of it all. He was not dead – he couldn't be, not with the pain of his broken rib piercing at him, though in a more muted fashion than before. He was alive, but he was in a place with warmth, and his hands were unbound. He was sitting on something soft, and brightness pressed upon his eyelids. He tried to make sense of it all, and felt his shivering increase. 

Finally he opened his eyes cautiously. He was within a crystal. 

Or so it seemed at first, so sharp were the reflections of light from the glass walls around him. On three sides they surrounded him: facetted panes of light, showering rainbows upon every object in the chamber: a series of shelves holding books, a desk and chair, a wardrobe and chest, and the soft bed upon which the youth sat. 

Beyond the sparkling cut-glass windows was a fragmented image of the world outside: a tall green-and-cream hedge rising above a man's height, with a single wooden gate providing the only break in the leafy arms that surrounded the chamber. Above the hedge rose the sky, blue and white like a robin's egg, with rays of sunlight falling unimpeded from somewhere above the solid ceiling over the youth's head. 

Under his fingers was a silk blanket, fine and soft; he felt its texture with his toes, looking this way and that in hopes of a clue that would make plain this mystery. Finally it occurred to him to look down at himself. 

His hands were indeed unbound; bandages had been lightly placed over where he still felt the ache of the bonds' chafing. Someone had washed him and cut his hair short – he could guess why from the lack of movement on his scalp. A second bandage was wound tightly around his ribs, constricting his breath. 

Suddenly all was clear. The prison physician, arriving to minister grudgingly to his patient, had discovered that his patient was dying. Apparently he was unable to overlook so large an injury as that, so he had administered a purge for the dry-leaf – he must have arrived soon after the poison was administered, the youth thought, or the purge would not have worked – and had then taken his patient to the infirmary for care. 

The youth's head felt light; there was no other sign of the dry-leaf except for a slight sickness remaining in his stomach. The youth found that he was staring at the door before him, the one that led through the only solid wall in this place: the door that led back into the prison. At any moment the physician would walk through the door and learn that his patient had recovered. And when he did . . . 

His ribs were aching more now, as his breath struggled against the bandage; he was battling the impulse to scream. He hugged himself tighter and looked around the chamber again, as though it might provide him with a second clue. 

It was then that he saw the second door. It was glass-paned from head to foot, like the wall into which it was set; it had a long, gold handle. 

He crawled out of the blanket slowly, his gaze fixed upon the glass door. A moment of dizziness swept over him as he rose to his feet, then vanished, to be replaced by the dull throb of pain in various parts of his body. He took a step toward the door, then stopped, looking down at himself. 

A moment later he was pawing his way through the wardrobe, fumbling with his maladroit hands as he pulled out whichever clothes looked as though they might fit him. They were all made of the same fine cloth as the sheets, and one of the shirts was embroidered with what appeared to be gold thread. He hesitated, looking at the expensive material, then resolutely clambered into the clothes; they fit him, though they had obviously been made for a taller person. 

Pairs of shoes lay at the bottom of the wardrobe; he tried to grab a pair of sandals, failed, and managed to slide his hands through the straps, scooping the shoes up by his wrists. Then, not wishing to waste more time, he ran to the glass door. 

He could not open the handle. The problem lay, not with the handle, but with his hands, which were still as numb as they had been when his wrists were bound. He dropped the sandals, then stood paralyzed as the sound of the shoes falling onto the tiled floor resounded through the chamber. 

No footsteps came to investigate. With his elbow, the youth lifted the handle; there was a click, and the door swung open. 

Sweet air greeted him, fresh with the smell of spring boughs. He breathed it into his body for a moment, ignoring the pain he still received when his chest lifted. Then carefully, slowly, he stepped into the outside world. 

Though it was noonday, a slight shadow jutted from the chamber behind him; he pressed himself against the glass wall, cloaking himself in the shadow's safety. He dared not look up at the prison to see whether anyone was watching him from the windows above; instead, he began the arduous task of sliding sideways so that he would be directly across from the hedge-gate. 

He still could not hear any sound from the streets outside the prison; he must be in some part of the prison that faced the back. The terrible possibility that he was trapped in an inner courtyard clenched his heart for a moment; he swallowed and continued sliding forward. The grass was warm and soft under his feet; he had forgotten the sandals within the crystal chamber, but he dared not return for them. He was very close now to the gate, and already his mind was seeking alternatives if the gate should prove to be locked. Could he climb through the close-leaved hedge, or climb over the gate? And how much time did he have before somebody would learn that he was missing and send out the search for him? With his chest heaving once more, he darted across the dangerous gap between the infirmary and the gate. 

The gate had a light wooden bar holding it closed; he did not bother with his hands this time but pushed the bar up with his elbow. He stepped back to let the gate swing open, then stepped through to freedom. 

And stood motionless, the wind taken from his body as effectively as the first time a guard had punched him in the stomach. 

He was no longer in the city. He was in the countryside: under his feet lay an enormous marble pavement that extended up to the point where it turned into a gravel driveway; beyond that were crop-fields – circles of level earth dotting the landscape. In the distance, trees shaded a huddle of houses; to the left of him, many yards away, stood another hedge, which appeared to lead to a body of water, for he could hear the quacking of ducks. Behind him – he turned slowly to look – were not the grim, dark walls of the prison, but the neat stone walls of an estate house, glinting with dozens of windows and capped with a bell tower. 

To the right of him, sitting in a chair with his back to the youth, was a man. Slowly, like a shy beast creeping forward into danger, the youth walked toward the man. His heart was pounding so hard now that it was difficult to breathe. He could not see the man's face, but he could see the man's hand lying upon the arm of the wooden chair, and on that hand was a crystal ring. 

He reached the chair finally, hesitated for a moment, then swiftly made his way round to the front and knelt before the man. After a moment he dared to look up. 

The lord with the light hand was as he had been a fortnight ago: young and stern of face. He had over his lap a writing board and paper, and his left hand held a lead stylus. He was silent, looking down upon the youth. 

"Lord master," the youth said softly, "I will do my best to repay to you my debt in any way I can." He placed his hand softly upon the inner part of the lord's thigh. 

The lord recoiled as though a dung-beetle had run across his privates. He stood up, causing the chair to scream across the marble; the stylus broke in his hand and fell to the ground. His hand upon the writing board had turned white. 

The youth, unaware that he was pressing his wrists together as though this might help, resisted the impulse to flee. Staring down at the ground, he whispered, "I thank you for paying my debt, lord master." 

"Give your thanks to Hilder." The lord's voice was harsh. "He was the one who found the money for you." 

The youth dared to raise his eyes to the crystal chain rising and falling upon the lord's heaving chest. The lord had moved several paces backwards, in the direction of the short flight of stone steps leading to the main door of the estate house. Still gripping his writing board, the lord said, "Hilder will take care of you." 

And then he was gone, leaving the youth staring at where he had been, wondering who his new master was who would "take care of" him. 

o—o—o

His new master was the lord, as it turned out. Hilder was the estate caretaker, an elderly, hawk-nosed man with a fierce loyalty to his lord. From overhearing the gossip of servants, the youth learned that Hilder had been placed in charge of raising the lord and his brother after their mother died when they were young. He still protected the lord like a snarling mother lion. 

There was always a caretaker in the songs about Erik the Commoners' Soldier: the caretaker bore a whip, and he helped the lords to carry out their evil deeds. Hilder bore no whip. He had no need to – at the slightest look of his strict, remorseless face, servants would scurry to his bidding. The result was an estate run with an efficiency that would have impressed the matrons of the boys' cottage. 

The youth's first encounter with this efficiency came on the day of his awakening; when he arrived back at the crystal chamber after his encounter with the lord, he found that, in his absence, someone had laid out a pitcher and glass for drinking, as well as a large basin, cloths, and soap-balls for cleaning. 

The water in the basin was steaming. Someone had already poured out a glass of drinking water from the pitcher; it was crystal clear and cold to the touch. 

Suddenly the youth's mouth was trembling. In the next moment, he was sitting huddled on the floor, pressing his mouth upon his knees, stifling his sounds. He stayed there for several minutes before he rose again. 

He had just finished washing his hands and face – which were already clean – when he heard a bell ringing from the estate house's bell tower. Going cautiously to the gate in the hedge, he saw that streams of men, women, and children were heading toward a side entrance to the house. After a moment's thought, he struggled his way into the sandals and joined the streams. 

The streams collected at last in a large, sunlit hall where dozens of benches and tables were set out to accommodate the servants of the estate. The youth sat down at one of them, mainly to be out of the way of the kitchen-servants scurrying back and forth with platters of food in hand; someone immediately placed before him a bowl of stew, a round of bread, and a cup of beer. 

He chewed on his lip for a moment, then picked up the bread, using his teeth to tear it apart piece by piece in an automatic manner to see what lay within. He had not gone far before he looked up to see the servant across from him – a copper-haired girl a little younger than himself – staring at him with astonishment. Her companion at the table leaned over and said something that made the copper-haired girl giggle; blushing to his collarbone, the youth dropped the bread to his plate. 

The stew was plain but hearty; looking around him, the youth saw that all of the servants received the same fare. What their lord ate, the youth could not see, for there was no lord's table placed on a high dais at the head of the hall, as in the songs about Erik. The youth supposed that the lord must dislike being around the commoners so much that he took his meals in his private quarters. 

Other than the copper-haired girl and her companion, no one took notice of the youth; the servants showed more notice of the dogs, who wandered in, expecting – and receiving – the leftover bones from the stew-making. There was much laughter as a kitchen-maid poured out a bucketful of bones to the eagerly yelping dogs, and there was much singing as the meal progressed. At one point, Hilder walked past the table; from listening to the other servants speak, the youth knew by now who the old man was, and he held his breath, waiting for Hilder to bring his lash down upon a servant who was making a good-humored but somewhat raucous joke concerning the lord. Hilder glanced at the servant in question, but passed on without comment. 

The meal ended; the servants returned to their work, inside and outside the house; they chatted cheerfully as they went, apparently unconcerned that their leisure time was over. The youth, unable to think of anything else to do, returned to the crystal chamber, and there he found the physician awaiting him. 

Later, from overhearing the servants' gossip, the youth would learn that the lord had been furious after he paid a large debt price for a prisoner, then was delivered what appeared to be a corpse. The lord had sent word to the nearest physician, who lived in the town, and then had awaited impatiently the six hours it took for the messenger to deliver the summons and for the physician to arrive. 

The physician had smelled the youth's breath, then remarked dryly that, if the lord was planning to have any more cases of dry-leaf ingestion in his household, he would be best off moving to the town, for any purge, to be effective, would have had to have taken place within half of an hour of the swallowing. All that the lord could do, the physician said, was wait and see whether less than four drops had been administered at the prison. 

The physician's examination of the youth on the day of his awakening was equally dry; the youth gathered that the physician regarded the body's inclusion of a talking mouth to be an encumbrance that was much to be deplored. The youth stayed quiet as the physician studied him at length; judging from his expression, the only fact that seemed to disconcert the physician was the casual manner in which the youth allowed his privates to be handled. 

The physician finally departed, leaving a formidable number of balms to be applied and drugs to be swallowed. He was no sooner gone than Hilder arrived. The youth leapt eagerly to his feet, but the visit proved to be a remarkably uninformative one. The caretaker told him of the estate house's routine – the times for meals and sleeping and full-body bathing – but when the youth diffidently asked what his new duties would be, Hilder seemed not to hear. The youth dared not press the matter; he still expected Hilder to bring out a whip at any moment. 

Perhaps the caretaker assumed the youth would know his duties without being told. But the youth had been born long after slavery was abolished in his land; the only slaves that existed now were debt-slaves, and the youth had never met one. There was only one task he could think of that he would be asked to do, and his services there had already been rejected. 

He spent the remainder of the first day exploring his surroundings. It took him only a short time to realize what he would have recognized if he had not been in such haste earlier: the door upon the solid wall of the crystal chamber led, not to the estate house, but to a series of chambers within a detached cottage: a kitchen and cold-pantry, a dining area, and a second small bedchamber and study that was presumably used in the winter, when the crystal chamber would be too cold to live in. An arched walkway led from the cottage to the nearby estate house, but the cottage was sufficient unto itself, provided that it was stocked with food. It was in fact stocked with food, but the youth did not touch this, fearing that he was prying into matters he ought to be letting alone. 

He was already afraid because a second inspection of the crystal chamber had revealed to him books, unfinished letters, and other evidence of the previous inhabitant of this cottage. What had the lord thought, seeing the youth in his dead brother's clothing? The youth was fortunate not to have been beaten on the spot. When he saw Hilder next, he must beg him for a change of clothing . . . 

But Hilder did not come, nor was the youth able to catch his eye during the mealtimes. After two days of sitting in the crystal chamber, reading the books and letters, the youth decided that he must give himself his own orders. 

He made his way to the gold-handled door, fumbling once more as he pushed the long handle down. From overhearing the physician speak to Hilder, the youth had learned what he might have guessed by now in any case: the numbness in his hands would last forever. Something had been pressed that should not have been pressed for so long a period, or so the physician had said. The physician had looked more pleased than concerned; the youth gathered that his dreams of crumbling hands had not been far from the truth, and that he was lucky to have use of his hands at all. 

The news terrified him, as nothing else in his new life had. He had always known that he did not have the strength of body to be a laborer; as a child, he had immersed himself in his schoolwork in hopes that one day he could become a scribe or bookkeeper. But never again would he be able to do that type of work; experimenting with a lead stylus he found in the crystal chamber, he determined that he could do no more than scrawl his signature in a wild fashion. 

Even if he were to escape the lord, he could not earn a living for himself now: he would die in the streets, and no one would wish to rescue him. 

It did not occur to him to try to escape. He had a debt to pay – two debts now, since the lord had paid his debt price. As in the prison, it was for him to find a way to make payment. 

He stepped out into the sweet scent of hedge-leaf, smoothing down his shirt. Rummaging in the chest of his chamber the previous day, he had found a folded shirt and breeches of plain design, the type a lord-kin might wear if it amused him to take on a commoner's task, such as gardening. The youth had laid these out, planning to wear them later, but they had disappeared while he was at his meals, only to reappear during the following mealtime, hemmed for a youth of his height and with sandals of an accompanying size. The youth never saw the servants who came and went from the crystal cottage, bringing water and fresh chamberpots; they operated with a skillfulness that worried the youth, since he doubted he could match it. 

The hedge-gate was wide open; after the first night, the youth had decided he felt easier with it open, even though this allowed any passing servant to stare into his chamber. He had never lived alone until his time in the prison; the idea of being completely cut off from the other estate folk bothered him. Servants had passed his cottage and glanced his way but not lingered, nor had anyone yet spoken to him at mealtimes. He was not surprised, but he wondered, with a little desperation, whether it would be this way for the remainder of his life. 

Outside the hedge, the youth found that his gaze turned first toward another hedge: toward the green bushes in the distance from which the quacking arose, But he realized quickly that the ducks had spilled out from their sanctuary: they were scattered upon the marble pavement which extended for several yards beyond the estate house, scurrying in pairs and threesomes and foursomes. The youth, who had watched this sort of yearly dance take place amongst the squirrels who played in the yard of the boys' cottage, realized at once that what he witnessed was not a game, but a pursuit: a pursuit by the scarlet-feathered ducks of the smaller grey ducks trying to outrace them. 

A couple of scarlets were so intent on their hunt that they did not notice the youth until they had nearly scurried under his legs; then they squawked back out of reach, startled. The grey duck seemed to be of sterner stuff, though her feathers were tousled in such a manner that the youth guessed she had already been pursued and caught several times that day. She stared up at him, her eyes unblinking, her left wing trailing upon the hard stone. She reached down with her bill and began to nibble at his toes. 

He realized suddenly what she must want; it sent a thrill through him, and also a tingle of fear; he looked back to ensure that no one was watching. Then he carefully crouched down, his right hand opened as wide as it could. 

She dipped her bill into the hand enquiringly, then looked up. He said softly, "I'm sorry, I don't have any food." 

She received this ill news with an unwavering gaze, then turned and began to waddle slowly away. Her wing dragged upon the pavement, and the youth saw that her left foot was likewise lame, causing her to move more slowly than the other ducks. 

She was a quarter of the way back to the hedge when, like hounds on the loose, a couple of scarlet males launched themselves upon her. She gave a piping scream, but could not move away in time; one of them caught the back of her neck with his bill and climbed atop her as she struggled beneath him. 

The youth, his stomach churning as he watched, tried to tell himself that he was misreading what was taking place. This happened every year among animals; no doubt it was less painful for the females than it looked. But his stomach continued to sicken as he watched the scarlet duck sate himself upon the lame grey duck, then walk off, leaving her lying upon the ground, motionless. 

The youth longed to go to her, and had to forcefully remind himself that he was a slave; if he moved that far from the estate house, someone might think that he was trying to escape. After a while, the lame duck rose heavily to her feet, ruffled her wings a bit, and then began the long, slow hobble back to the hedged area where she lived. 

The youth watched until she had slid under the gate that kept out humans but not ducks; then he turned to look toward the rest of the estate lands. The estate was aflicker with movement. 

A commoner with a wicker basket hung round his neck was walking in a circle about one of the round crop-fields, scattering something from the basket with each step. Close behind him, a second commoner was seated upon a horse that plodded patiently along, dragging behind it what appeared to be an elaborate rake on a frame; the rake was tossing the earth, covering what had been scattered. 

The first man finished his task and stepped off the field into the meadowgrass nearby, knocking square into a commoner who was bent over, chopping at an overgrown hedge. The hedger catapulted neatly into the bush, prompting the sound of startled bleating from the sheep that were on the other side of the hedge enclosure. The man extracted himself from the hedge hastily; he was bleeding where the branches had cut his face. 

The youth held his breath, expecting fists to be used to settle this matter, but the hedger accepted the first man's solicitous hand that pulled him upright, and a moment later the men were sharing laughter. The first man turned in time to raise a hand in greeting to a young woman who was carrying a bucket of water that she had fetched from a well nearby, and who was politely waiting for the two men to move out of her way. Already a second female servant was hurrying forward from the estate house to assist the young woman. 

The youth walked slowly toward the house, his head moving from side to side. Before the attack of the Commoners' Army on the spring-coming children, the youth had never visited the countryside; he had only the vaguest notion of how food appeared on the plates at the boys' cottage. "Through the harsh labor of commoners who are little more than slaves," Keven had told him once when he asked. Looking around him, the youth could see that the general was right: the work taking place was causing the field-servants to press their hands against aching backs and to wipe great quantities of sweat from their brows. It was just like the songs, and the youth half expected to see Erik ride over the hill at any moment, to free the commoners from their oppression. Frowning a little, the youth started up the stone steps to the house, passing as he did so the stone balcony that wrapped its way around the house. 

Inside, the work was no less hard: the annual spring refreshening was taking place as floors were scrubbed down to their cracks, fireplaces were scraped clean of the tiniest ash, servants climbed ladders to wipe the corners of the ceiling free of cobwebs, the last remaining pussywillow branches from the spring-coming were tossed in a pile. . . . This final act made the youth's breath catch in his throat. 

He walked from chamber to chamber, trying to select a task at which he could be helpful. At the boys' cottage, the older boys took turns carrying heavy loads such as firewood, but the matrons did all of the scrubbing and dusting and polishing. Looking about, the youth realized what a lot of work that required. He thought again of the matrons, with their harsh voices and their tendency to shove him out of the way peremptorily. He had forgotten about the heavy buckets they usually carried at such moments, and he felt his face grow warm. 

A bucket stood near him, filled with dirty water, evidently waiting to be taken outside and dumped away. He reached down and scooped up the bucket by its handle. But he had forgotten about his hands. He could not feel the bucket handle, and his hands still had trouble closing completely; the bucket fell from his hands, sending mucky water shooting forth onto the clean walls, an expensive rug, and the dress of the copper-haired girl kneeling nearby, who squealed as she jumped to her feet. 

The servants in the chamber had been chatting brightly with each other, but there was a sudden silence as all looked to see what had happened. Glances were exchanged and then, as though a council decision had been reached, all of the servants looked away and returned to their bright chatter, but for a few who came forward to help the copper-haired girl, who was now crying over the loss of her dress. 

Suddenly the youth felt hot tears pricking at his own eyes. With his ribs beginning to send sharp notes of pain again as his chest heaved, the youth turned on his heel and fled. 

o—o—o

He passed three hours curled in a ball in the crystal chamber before he was able to find the courage to seek out Hilder and tell the caretaker what he had done. Hilder acknowledged his words with a curt nod but seemed uninterested; the youth gathered that the caretaker had more important matters on his mind, and judging from the papers he held in his hand, the matters involved money. The youth decided that the caretaker must be making a list of the lord's copious goods, the way caretakers always did in the songs; he slipped away before he should see whether he had been added to the list of the lord's wealth. 

By the end of the fortnight, the youth had concluded that he was the least valuable of the lord's goods. He could not manage to hold a bucket by grasping its handle; he could not chop vegetables with a cooking knife for more than a few seconds before the knife fell from his benumbed hands; he could not make his hands close well enough around a rag to wipe dust from a shelf; and he could not hold the long hooks that the field-servants used to weed the crop-fields. Indeed, the youth knew of only one task he could do without use of his hands, and the lord still had not called for that service from him. 

He could guess why. The physician continued to make his weekly visits, looking cheerful at every bruise and sore he treated – the youth gathered that the physician considered him a challenge. Some of the sores in the youth's groin area were beginning to disappear, but slowly, and the youth supposed that the lord was waiting until they were all gone before he made use of his new slave. 

He thought about his future duties sometimes, when he lay in the crystal chamber at night, turning his head to stare at the stars wheeling slowly in the sky. The lord would be gentle, he was sure, and perhaps he would stroke the youth's hair again. . . . He would go to sleep with this peaceful image in mind and wake before long, choking with sobs and stifled screams. 

No one ever came to investigate the sounds. The youth supposed that no one ever heard his cries – he had guessed by now that he had been given the privilege of staying in the crystal cottage because the lord did not want him near the other servants, who apparently resented the murderer of their lord's brother so much that they would not communicate with him even when he sat with them at mealtimes. Fearing that any approach by him would be greeted with scornful words, the youth stayed as far away as possible from the other folk of the estate, particularly the children of the servants and tenants. 

He remained uncertain as to what was expected of him during this transitional period before his lord master made use of him, and he worried that he was breaking rules unknowing. It made him hesitant to dare chances, but after several days of visits from the lame duck, he could withhold himself no longer. 

Watching the servants carefully at mealtime, the youth saw that some of the field-servants would carry off their bread or meat to finish outdoors. With his heart thrumming in his throat, the youth stood up at the end of the meal, picked up his round of bread, and carried it past Hilder in an obvious manner. 

Hilder's gaze flickered toward him, then away. The caretaker was absorbed in conversation with the lord, who did not hide away in his private quarters at mealtimes, as the youth had initially thought, but sat down at whatever empty space was available at the tables, usually with his writing board in hand. The youth noticed, however, that the lord never chose a place at the youth's end of the hall, and the youth took care not to come near his lord master. He supposed that the remaining illnesses of his body still made him an ugly sight. 

He found the lame duck awaiting him in their usual meeting place, near the crystal cottage; the youth fed the bread to her piece by piece, thinking about the writing board and the list in Hilder's hand. The youth knew enough about the estate by now that he could be sure that the lord was not tallying up his wealth. More likely he was thinking about sheep. 

For three years, the black-tongue sheep disease had spread from village to village, bringing death to flocks wherever it touched. Many a commoner had starved to death after his small flock of sheep was slaughtered by death's hand, and Keven had often spoken of these starvings as evidence of the lords' cruelties. 

It had not occurred to the youth, during his days with the Commoners' Army, to ask why the lords' sheep were immune from the disease. Now he learned that they were not. The lord planned to sell many of his sheep after the shearing, but already reports were drifting in from the lord's tenants that the sheep in the tenants' holds were dying. 

The shearing was still a month away. If the sheep were sold before the shearing, the lord's household would be deprived of a year's worth of wool, but by the time the shearing came, the sheep might be lost. 

For a week, the estatehold held its collective breath, awaiting the lord's decision. Down in the tenantholds, the disease had finally been brought to an end through the simple solution of killing all of the diseased sheep. The youth thought about the starving commoners that Keven had spoken of, and he found himself staring toward the tenant houses, where the families marked for death lived on without hope. 

Finally the decision was made. Still three weeks short of the shearing, the sheep were packed one day into long waggons, bleating with protest as they were separated from the small flock that would remain behind. The youth watched the departing sheep loaded as the grim-faced lord stood by, giving instructions to the drivers. The drivers nodded; the waggons, creaking with their heavy load, made their way down the gravel driveway toward the dirt road into town, which began at the village. 

And halted there. As the youth watched, the sheep were carefully unloaded and distributed to the crowd of waiting tenants, who proceeded to lead the sheep home to their little sheep-pens. 

When the youth turned to look at the lord, he found that his master had already turned away and was walking slowly back to the estate house with Hilder. The list in the caretaker's hand had grown longer.   
  

**CHAPTER FIVE**

Summer-coming coincided with haymaking that year, so the festival was put off until after the vital work of scything the meadow-grass that would be dried into fodder. The youth still understood little about how the estate was run, but he was able to make the connection between the tall grass growing in the meadows and the estate horses that did all the work of harrowing, carting, and even providing hair for the weaving of mats. The estate did not grow enough grain to spare for the horses, and the pastures were often snowbound during the cold months. Without hay, the horses would not survive the winter; that was clear enough. 

It took the youth longer to understand why the storm clouds passing overhead caused so much concern amongst the estate folk, or why the servants and tenants clustered in huddles on the day that the rain began. Scythes were standing at the eaves of the estate house, ready to be used in the mowing, but they remained untouched. The rain continued down and down and down, creating rivers of water through the tall wheat that enticed the ducks, who emerged en masse from their hedged sanctuary and whimsically floated down the new streams. The ducks were happy; the lord looked grimmer than before, and Hilder had begun adding new pages to the list. 

On the third morning of the rain, the youth emerged with a jerk from screams coming from dark cells. He had awoken to the sound of loud thumps against the panes of his bedchamber. 

It was hail, slicing through the sky and attacking the glass like miniature cannonballs. The youth retreated into the solid portion of the cottage; when he finally re-emerged, he found that the crystal chamber was unscathed, but a crowd had gathered on the edge of the meadow. 

He could see this from his gate; he hesitated before coming closer to the still crowd. No one looked at him or spoke to him as he came forward – he had grown used to that, though not reconciled to it. What was odd on this occasion was that none of the estate folk were talking to each other either. 

He understood why when he saw what lay in the meadow: a soggy mess of mud, melting hailstones, and the remains of grass that had been cut down and pounded, as though with a flail. 

The youth's stomach roiled. He illness arose, not from the thought of the horses, but because he had been present at times like this when the Commoners' Army suffered from disaster. There would be angry voices, recriminations, threats of punishment upon outlaws who had failed to do their duty, and above all, hateful words directed at the lords and their kin. 

Standing near the crystal cottage of the murdered lord-kin, the youth was suddenly sure he did not wish to hear those words. 

A low murmur was beginning to pass through the crowd; the words, as undefined as vapor, began to take shape and then solidify, until they were strong and resolute. They came in the form, not of statements, but of questions, and the questions were firmly asked: What food should the estate folk serve at the summer-coming? What games should they play? And who should serve as the Summer Master in the Dance? 

The youth listened with growing wonder, his gaze fixed upon the lord, who was standing nearby with Hilder, listening to the caretaker say something. The lord nodded; he beckoned to a couple of the horse drivers, and a short time later, most of the horses of the estate were led onto the gravel driveway. This time they did not pause at the village; they disappeared down the road to the town and did not return. 

Some of the money from their sales, the youth later learned, went to pay for the summer-coming festivities. The youth did not see who was picked to be the Summer Master, though; nor did he take part in the Dance. For his time at the prison had finally made its mark: the illness he had felt in his stomach on the day of the hail-storm had spread to fever, and before long he lay burning upon the bed in the crystal chamber. 

His mind could take in little of what was happening. He heard quacks in the distance and worried that no one was feeding the lame duck. He heard bells call the estate folk to form the Dance around the Summer Master, the person selected by the commoners to serve as the symbol of life and growth amidst plenty. He heard the physician speaking, as well as Hilder, and once he thought he heard the lord's voice raised in passion, but he could not be sure. Then he began to hear screams, and he could not pull away from those screams. 

He woke finally on a scorching evening to discover that the crystal chamber was on fire. 

He tried to pull himself from the bed, but he was still weak; he stumbled to his knees. He had been stripped of his clothes while he was asleep, and he could feel the harsh bite of the fire's heat upon his skin. The flames leapt up all around the clear walls, sending rainbows of odd shapes upon the objects in the chamber. 

The fire had started at the outside corners to the cottage and had not yet reached the door of glass. Sobbing as he pulled himself across the floor, scraping his knees raw, he reached up to lift the door handle. But his hands were too numb; he could not raise the handle. 

A crash screamed in the air. It was followed by a shower of fine crystals: the fire had broken through at the head of the cottage. He reached up again to the handle: the gold slipped through his hands, as slippery as a fish. He tried tugging at it with his teeth, but it was too large for his mouth. He could see the flames approaching him. 

And then, sure and strong, a hand slid around his back and pulled him to his feet. When he turned to look, he saw a youth no older than himself standing next to him, smiling; on his chest lay a crystal chain. It sparkled in the light of the fire, unmarred by soot. 

Still smiling, the new arrival pushed down the gold handle and opened the door. The youth stumbled into the cool air of the evening, feeling the heat of the fire recede. The hedge-gate was wide open, and from beyond it came the quiet quack of ducks. 

But when the youth turned, he saw that the other young man was still standing in the fiery chamber, and the door had closed. The crystal chain held soot upon it now, and the young man's face had turned into the face of the lord. 

o—o—o

He emerged from his fever-dreams soon afterwards, as well as from his illness. As soon as the physician gave him permission to rise (with a gesture, not words), he went to the spot where he was accustomed to meet the lame duck. He waited long past her usual visiting time, but she did not arrive. Only as he was turning aside, his head bent in sorrow, did he hear the faint sound of peeping arising from the ducks' sanctuary, and he realized the cause. Mating season was over; now was the time for mother ducks to raise their families. With lightened heart, he walked toward the estate house. 

He was there in time to see series of carriages roll up to the steps; from each emerged a finely dressed man accompanied by a servant. The youth watched them, entranced; meetings of the lords appeared in nearly every song about Erik. The lords would gather together and speak angrily about the commoners: of their laziness, their greediness, their indifference to their appointed duties. And then, once the meeting was accomplished, the lords would ride home in their carriages and execute several score of innocent commoners. 

The youth heard much of the meeting, but not with intention. The balcony that wrapped its way around the estate house could be reached by a gate from the steps to the house's main entrance. No one had ever told the youth whether he was permitted to visit the balcony, but the chamber immediately to the left of the steps was curtained and seemed always to be still. And so the youth had taken to visiting the balcony each day to rub clean the broad railing with his sleeve. 

He had just finished doing so and was about to pass the curtained chamber when he heard a loud thump from within the house, followed by a jumble of voices. The youth turned to see that the curtain had been pulled back, and the chamber was now filled with his master, the other lords, and – horror upon horror – Hilder, who was serving the lords himself on this special occasion. 

Hilder's eyes scanned the chamber with cool efficiency, seeking anything out of place; feeling his heart pound his body like a fist, the youth pressed himself against the short space of wall between the curtained chamber and the busy servants' quarters next to it. To reach the gate of the balcony he must cross the gap, and he dare not do that until he was sure that Hilder was gone. 

The rumble of voices steadied into a series of hard, angry denunciations. Everything that had been in the songs about Erik was here: the lords flung accusations of laziness, greediness, indifference to appointed duties. It was some time before the youth realized that the lords were not speaking of the commoners. 

"Corruption!" cried one of the lords. "There is corruption at the heart of the lords' council." 

"You state the obvious." The youth recognized the dry voice that spoke; it belonged to his master's cousin, the only kinsman who had visited the estate during the youth's time there. "The question is, how do we stop it?" 

"We bring the matter into public," suggested another voice. 

"Where the accusations will die unaddressed," said the harsh voice of his master. "The lords' High Councillor— Forgive me, Dermott." 

"I trust I know the ill deeds of my brother as well as any," the dry voice said. "If slavery still existed, he would be whipping his tenants daily." 

"The magistrates abolished slavery," pointed out another lord. "They have power over the lords' council, though it is limited. If we brought the matter to them—" 

"We would need proof," said his master. "And what proof do we have? Remarks we have heard our kinsmen make late at night, when the wine flowed freely and their tongues were loose? That is not evidence which will be accepted in a judging room." 

"There is evidence aplenty in the world about us of what the lords' council and their sympathizers have done," said the first voice that had spoken. "We need only look at what they control. The moneylenders. The market licenses. The fair fees. The taxes, that grind to dust not only the commoners but any lord who refuses to let his tenants take the brunt of the suffering—" 

"You make a fair speaker," said another lord, with a hint of laughter in his voice. "You should join the Commoners' Army." 

Chuckles skittered across the chamber, though the youth thought the lords' amusement sounded forced. The laughter was cut off as his master said, "Keven and the Commoners' Army may be misguided in their methods, but they sense rightly the stench of corruption. The question is, how do we make the magistrates sniff this for themselves?" 

"The magistrates are forever lenient in pursuing investigations of the rich and powerful," said another lord. "One can hardly blame them, since they receive their appointments from the lords." 

"Yet another sign of corruption," said the dry voice of his master's cousin. "The magistrates ought to receive their appointments from the commoners' councils." 

This sparked an excited discussion of ways to bring this change about, until the tired voice of his master said, "We talk in circles. No great change will take place in the appointment of the magistrates until the rottenness at the core of the lords is dug out. And that cannot be done without the help of the magistrates." 

"If the stench were strong enough, the magistrates could not fail to take notice," said one of the earlier voices. "We need only find an institution where abuse is blatant, because the commoners there are too weak and powerless to protest. The healing centers, for example, or the prisons—" 

"The prisons," broke in a voice eagerly. "There have been rumors that the guards there dole out punishment not required by the law." 

"The guards are commoners," pointed out the previous voice. 

"But the prisons are supervised by the lords." 

"Supervised." The first speaker in the conversation gave a snort. "I know what lords' supervisions are like – my father used to take me with him when he paid calls on the boys' cottages. He would listen to the matrons' reports in silence, pat a few boys on the head, and that would be all. I always left the cottages wondering what they were like when the lords weren't there." 

"If the lords are neglecting their duties as superintendents of the prison, and if the abuse is great enough, then we would be able to persuade the magistrates to punish any lords involved in the matter." The dry voice had taken on a keener tone. "Cousin, what do you think of this as a path to pursue? You have a former prisoner in your estatehold." 

There was a sudden, pregnant silence, but for a rumble coming from all corners of the chamber, which did not sound like approval. After a moment, his master said, "It is a matter worth pursuing later, I think. For now, I would like to return to the topic of the boys' cottages." 

Using his legs alone and teetering dangerously, the youth had managed to seat himself upon the balcony railing; now he swung his legs around and let himself drop to the marble pavement, where he held his breath while waiting to see whether Hilder would investigate the sound. When no one appeared, he dashed off to the crystal cottage to ponder what he had learned. He had no desire to hear about the boys' cottages, nor to hear his master turn aside with indifference from the topic of his debt-slave. 

o—o—o

As summer deepened, the youth began to feel that something was tremendously odd about the lord's estate. The oddness arose from more than a meeting of lords discussing how to strip themselves of power. It arose from the servants and tenants. 

Of course the youth had heard songs about commoners who were oblivious to the fact that they were being oppressed; usually all it took was an influx of death to make them realize that they must rise out of their life of suffering and build a new world where peace and prosperity would reign. The youth had thought much about that world during his months in prison. 

So it was with a certain tension that he waited to see what would happen as the commoners of the lord's estate began to die. 

The fever the youth had undergone after the haymaking was not, as it turned out, directly due to his prison time. Instead, his illness was part of a summer pestilence that had first arisen the previous year, when the youth had been imprisoned. The youth had undergone the pestilence before anyone else this year because of his weakened body, but now others on the estate began to grow ill as well. All who survived the pestilence were immune from it thereafter, or so said the town physician, who came every day to care for the sick. But many of the estate folk died from the pestilence, especially the young and elderly. 

As soon as the lord learned that the pestilence had reached his estate, he sent as many of the young and elderly away from the estate as possible, carting them over to the estate of his cousin, who agreed to take them, despite the added danger to his own estate folk. But most of the lord's commoners chose to stay, and soon body-burnings were daily events on the estate. 

The youth went to one of the burnings: it was of the younger sister of the copper-haired girl. He watched the younger girl being burnt, and thought of the children he had killed, and watched the copper-haired servant weeping. It was all part of paying his debt. He knew that Keven would say, "The children you killed were different – they were lords' children." He tried to recapture that knowledge in his mind, but he could not – not while the lord stood nearby, his face drawn with grief, and upon his breast the soot-covered chain that his brother had once worn. 

The commoners of the lord's estate did not arise in revolt against death. They spoke in hushed tones of death, but as though it were part of the passing seasons, something they expected and had grown to know, like a guest who pays calls at regular intervals and must be suitably hosted, no matter how unwelcome he is. 

Looking around the estate, the youth thought to himself that nothing could be further than the paradise that Keven had promised him. The work was hard enough to break the body, suffering scourged the estate at regular intervals . . . and yet when the commoners of the estate passed each other, they smiled, and when one of them had need of help, another was always at hand. How was it possible that, amidst this bleakness, joy should live? It was like seeing a bright flower blooming atop a dung hill. 

He thought about this one day, as the sun scorched fire upon his arms and face while he knelt to scoop up an armful of wheat. Pestilence or not, the wheat must be harvested, and so the estate folk, lessened by the absent and the sick and the dead, went out into the fields and struggled from dawn till dusk to bring in the harvest in the time permitted before the crop should die. 

There was no rain this time, nor even any clouds – only the fierce lash of the sun's rays upon the bodies of all who worked. Sweat collected upon the youth, making his skin itch; so hot was the air that he scorched his lungs each time he took a breath. Whenever he placed the wheat stalks in his arms, his body shivered with pain, for his skin had grown red and swollen. 

All around him it was the same. Yet the commoners sang as they worked – sang with lust the songs of Eric, the youth realized with incredulity – and even as they offered brief complaints about the work, the commoners were ready to laugh at the next joke made. 

Having deposited the long sheaf of wheat where it would be tied, the youth looked around the crop-field. The servants and tenants, harvesting side by side, had worked their way in spirals from the outside of this circular field to the inside; now they were working their way back, checking carefully to see that no grain had been missed. Watching the widening circle, the youth was reminded suddenly of the Summer and Winter Dances. 

He had participated in Dances before, in the boys' cottage and in the Commoners' Army, though none as complex as the ones that the lord's estate held. Here, the Dances would begin when the Master of the Dance – the Summer Master or the Winter Master – took hold of the hand of a passing man or woman and danced forward, leading a winding way through the estate house. In each chamber they passed, the last person on the line would snatch the next person to join the Dance, until the long line included every person in the estatehold, save the musicians and the lord. Then the Dance would reach the hall, and the line would begin to form into a circle. At the last moment, as the line became a circle, the Master would break free and twirl into the middle of the circle, his spinning body continuing to set the pace for the whirling dancers. The Dance was hard-paced, and some folk always fell out of it, but the rush of wind and the tug of hands and the joining together of all in a common task was a pleasure that could be found in few other activities in a commoner's life. 

Now the youth looked upon the harvesting taking place before him. An elderly man stooped low to cut the wheat at ground level; he tossed the wheat into a sheaf-pile, which was promptly lifted by the copper-haired girl, who carried it off; on the way, she passed a young child sitting upon the ground, twisting a blade of long grass into a binding band; the child placed the band upon the ground in time for the copper-haired girl to toss the stalks of wheat upon it; this was fairly pounced upon by a young man who knotted the band around the wheat, then stood the sheaf upright, ready to be taken away and stored in the barn. 

It was a Dance, the youth realized – a long, snaking Dance that would ultimately curl into a circle when the wheat had been threshed and winnowed and milled and mashed and boiled and stored again and finally turned into the beer that the elderly man was now swallowing. 

It was a circle twirling fast and hard, seemingly without effort. But if the harvest and other work on the estate was a Dance, who was its Master? 

The youth looked instinctively toward the lord. He was there, as he had been every day during the harvest, sitting at his chair and scribbling upon his writing board; from the lingering looks he had given to the harvesters, the youth guessed that lord would far rather have been working in the fields than sitting hour by hour in the chair, trying to make the numbers before him work out to the estate's advantage. Periodically he would be interrupted by Hilder or one of the other commoners, wishing his command or advice on some matter, and he was always listened to with respect and interest, but not, the youth thought, with intense excitement. The lord was too stern and reserved to stir up love in his servants and tenants; they valued and honored him, but he did not lead the estate's Dance. 

Hilder was sitting nearby on the stone steps; he had been working earlier, assigning the harvesters' positions and arranging for food to be delivered to the fields, so that the harvesters need not leave their work in order to break their fast. Now he was taking a much-deserved break himself, sketching something upon a piece of stiff writing card with a lead stylus. The youth went into the center of the field-circle and looked at all of the commoners, but none of them appeared to be taking any notice of Hilder. They would follow his orders obediently when he gave them, but he was not the Master of their Dance. 

The youth's eye strayed over to an elderly woman directing the dispersal of beer to the harvesters. It had startled the youth when he learned that the estate held not one but two commoners' councils: the tenants' council and the servants' council. He had always thought that commoners' councils were reserved for the city, where the commoners were less enslaved by the lords. Yet his lord master seemed eager to allow the councils on his estate to make decisions on their own behalf; the more that the youth saw the lord sitting at his writing chair day by day, even into moonlit evenings, the more the youth understood why. The lord could not possibly have made all of the decisions needed to run the estate, so the commoners were in charge of the daily task of running the estate, while the lord did his best to figure out how to keep the estate from being made the property of the moneylenders from whom he had borrowed the previous spring, when an unexpected expense occurred. 

The woman raised her hand and cried out the end of the morning's work; she was the head of the servants' council, placed in charge of the harvest since the head of the tenants' council was afflicted with the pestilence this year. All around the youth – in the field where he worked and in the other fields nearby – sighs and groans of relief resounded. Men dropped sickles, women dropped sheaves, and children dropped bands; on the field where he stood, twenty other commoners made their way to their rest. Yet no one looked again at the woman, who had disappeared without further word into the crowd of estate folk heading toward the pallets laid out for them on the nearby meadow. 

The Master of the Dance was not here. This the youth was sure of as he looked about the fields. No one on this estate had the strength and power to inspire the hard-gained joy that could keep the estate folk working cheerfully through illness and loss and death. Yet the Dance went on, spinning around an invisible Master. 

He knew who the Master must be. The youth knelt motionless, still stooped to carry a final sheaf over to the bands. His body was shaking, and he bowed his head to hide both his weariness and his grief. He knew now why no one on the estate had ever spoken to him, but for the brief instructions Hilder had given him at the beginning. He knew why no one would ever speak to him again. 

He had murdered the Master of the Dance. He imagined the lord's brother, standing in the middle of the circle, his face alight with the love and generosity that had kept the Dance twirling furiously. Then he imagined the lord's brother gone, and the Dance slowly dying away until all of the life of the estate dwindled into despair. 

Tears were trailing down his face now, mingled with the sweat. Angry with himself for his self-pity, he jerked his hand over his face, leaving a trail of dirt and grain-dust. All around him, the songs of harvesting were dying as the men and women began to settle onto their pallets for the midday sleep. 

A group of men sat nearby, talking in low tones so as not to disturb the sleepers; the men had a bucket beside them, but it was dry of water. The youth went over to the well by the hedge and found a bucket of fresh water there, awaiting the next comer. He scooped up the bucket into his arms – he had long since learned to use his arms and legs and feet where his hands failed him – and took the bucket over to the men, placing it beside them and using his wrists to transfer the dipper from the empty bucket to the full one. 

None of the men took notice of him; he backed away and looked around to see what other work he could do. It was stupid, he knew – he was a burden upon the estate, with his crippled hands. He would never be able to pay back even a small part of the debts he owed to the lord and his estate. Yet the same agonizing compulsion that had driven him to try to pay his debt in the prison also led him to look here for tiny, unfulfilled tasks. He might be the slowest dancer in this Dance, but he was determined to take part. 

The lord and his caretaker had disappeared into the house; on the steps to the house lay Hilder's writing card, abandoned. It could be trampled where it lay; the youth stepped forward to place it aside the step-railing, where it would be safer. 

He was doing so when he found himself staring at the paper, eating it with his eyes. The picture before him was in the same style as the sketch that the lord had shown the youth in the prison – the youth wasn't surprised at this, for he had seen the caretaker sketching at odd moments and had long ago guessed who the artist of the estate must be. What surprised the youth was that here, in the rough sketch, was the scene he had envisioned: the circle of the crop-field edged by the circle of workers. They had all paused in their work – in their Dance – and appeared to be looking at something in the center of the circle. Some of the harvesters were pointing; others were smiling or nodding approvingly; one appeared to be laughing with joy. 

The center of the circle was empty. No one stood there, though the blankness at the middle of the field suggested that Hilder had imagined someone standing there: someone who was the focus of the estate's life. 

The youth began to put the sketch carefully down; he was biting his lip as he did so, trying to control his shaking chin. And then, despite himself, he heard a sob escape his throat, and he turned and began to run to the crystal cottage, as though there, at least, he could escape from what he had seen in the sketch. 

Hundreds of harvesters were scattered about the estate's fields, but twenty-one of them had worked in the circle Hilder had depicted. Twenty harvesters were shown in the sketch. Nowhere in the picture could the youth be found.   
  

**CHAPTER SIX**

Fall-coming brought rebirth to the air: brightly colored leaves spilling from the chimneypieces and carpeting the floor of the hall, and renewed hope spilling from the hearts of the estate folk. Fair-time had arrived, the period in the year when lords and commoners who had suffered losses during the year could adjust their fortunes by buying or trading for the goods they needed. The youth's master remained at his estate, supervising the tender nursing of the crops for the leaf-fall season, but a goodly number of servants and tenants set off for the town fair. 

They returned three days later with anger in their faces. The lords' council had raised the fees for participation in the fairs. Any men and women who bought substantial goods at the fair – lords and rich commoners – were exempt from the fee, but those who could not afford to buy many goods – most commoners and a few of the poorest lords – were required to pay twice over the amount they spent. The servants and tenants arrived home with virtually no goods to see them through the winter, and they brought the news that many commoners were now saying that the Commoners' Army was justified in its killings of the lord-kin. 

The youth was standing in the hall within sight of his master when the lord heard this news; the lord's lips went thin, but he said nothing, nor did he look in the youth's direction. The youth dared not turn his head to see what the other estate folk thought of this news. Since the wheat harvest, he had avoided listening to the servants' gossip, fearing no longer that he would hear his name mentioned with scorn – what he feared was that he would not hear his name at all. 

Mealtime continued; Hilder sat down with the lord and began preparing a new list, that of the goods the estate lacked to survive the winter. Listening to the low murmur of their voices, the youth wondered why the lord did not simply raise his rents. It happened in all of the songs: the lords raised their rents, the tenants were unable to pay the higher fees, and the lords threw the tenants out of their homes, usually in time for them to die during the first snowfall. 

The rents were not raised. Instead, a scouring of the estate house took place: tapestries were pulled from walls, rugs were removed from tables and floors, silver and brass items were taken out of cupboards, and even the medical storeroom was searched for the more valuable drugs. The youth joined the crowd of servants silently watching the hillock of belongings rising in the entranceway to the estate house; Hilder stood nearby, writing down each item as it arrived, and beyond him stood the lord, as silent as the servants. He was fingering the chain at his neck, and the youth suddenly knew, as though the lord had spoken, that he was wondering whether to sell the chain as well. 

No one saw the youth leave, or if they did, they did not remark upon it. If anyone watched him return, he could not have known it, for in his arms was a small mountain rising above his head: a mountain made of fine clothes, books, and a soft silk blanket. 

It was all that he had been able to find in the crystal cottage; the lord's brother had not been one to collect wealth. The youth placed the pile carefully with the other goods, then looked nervously at the lord, fearing he would be chastised for his presumption. 

Hilder was looking at the lord too, and after a moment the lord gave a short nod. His gaze drifted away from the pile of belongings, and the youth wondered, with a hard beat of the heart, whether now, finally, he would be called upon to pay his debt. But after a brief moment, the lord turned away and left the hall, still wearing the crystal chain about his neck. 

The leaf-fall harvest was brought in without trouble, the fruit was felled from the trees over the tenants' homes, and the animals that would not be kept over the winter were slaughtered for meat. Life slowed on the estate. There had been a period of worry after the fair which even the golden ghost of the lord's brother had been unable to lift, but the sale of the lords' belongings had brought in enough money to buy the needed winter goods, and now the servants and tenants spoke cheerfully of the coming season's ease. 

The youth had been listening more carefully to the conversations in the hall between Hilder and the lord; he knew that matters did not lie that simple, for the lord continued to owe money for his unexpected spring debt, and there was always the danger that the moneylenders of the lord's council would collect on his debt, taking what little the lord still owned. 

In the midst of one such dark conference, the youth left the mealtime. Hilder's gaze flicked toward him as he walked out of the hall; none of the servants noted his departure, nor did the lord, frowning with creased brow over Hilder's latest list. The youth made his way into the sharp shock of the outside chill. 

The fields lay fallow now; what few of the lord's animals remained on the farm had been brought into the barn stalls, so all was quiet, but for the sound of quacking from the ducks' hedged home. The youth had carried between his wrists, as always, the round of bread, but he let the bread fall to the ground as he regarded the emptiness before him. The lame duck had not returned; by the time she had finished raising her family, she must have forgotten about the youth – forgotten even about the free food she had received from him, the only reason she had ever come to see him. The youth thought about this a long while, his wrists pressed tight together in his old manner. He thought also of the servants who had not watched him go, and of the lord, oblivious to his departure. 

The lord had forgotten him. That was the only explanation. He had forgotten that his slave was the reason for his high debt to the moneylenders – had forgotten the slave, even though the youth represented the answer to his financial troubles. 

The youth had waited all through the leaf-fall for the lord to realize this and send for him. At first he thought that the lord was too gentle to order his slave upon this path; then he realized that the idea had probably not even occurred to the lord. After all, why should it? He was not like the guards. 

But he could make use of the youth, as the guards had. 

Though the youth could not be sold, he could be rented; his body could be given to others – lords or commoners – who wished to make use of him in that way, and who would pay for the privilege. The youth tried to calculate how much he could earn for the lord. He could not be sure, for he did not know what rent could be placed upon him, but he knew the number of men he could serve daily, and he thought the money from them would help to pay at least part of the lord's debt. 

And part of his own debt. He had not forgotten that. 

He stood there, watching the hard hand of winter's wind stir the hedge where the ducks hid, and he imagined it all beginning again: the blows, the angry voices, the bleeding throat. Almost, he though, it would be better than the exile he lived in now. Perhaps the lord would even speak to him on occasion. 

He realized that his thoughts were becoming centered upon his own grief, and he turned them aside quickly to remembering the young lord, made old before his time by the weight of the burdens he carried. If the youth could ease those burdens . . . He turned abruptly away, leaving the abandoned bread to the birds as he walked in the direction of the hedge that surrounded his crystal cottage. He ought to wash himself before he asked permission to see the lord, he decided. He must try to persuade the lord that he was no longer as ugly as he had been in prison. 

The land outside the estate house was still quiet; mealtime continued within the house, while further away, smoke rose peacefully from the houses of the tenants. The youth opened the gate leading through the hedged wall around the crystal cottage, and then, as he passed beyond it, let the gate fall shut again without looking back at it. 

He could not have looked back to save his life. Standing before him was Keven.


	3. Winter Master

**_Debt Price_ 3**   
**WINTER MASTER**

>    
> "The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing."
> 
> —Blaise Pascal: _Pensées._

  
**CHAPTER SEVEN**

The general was dressed, as always, in a long dress of rough-spun wool, such as any commoner maiden might wear. The youth knew that Keven's parents had been rich commoners who had overreached their ambitions by trying to force her into a marriage with a lord of smooth words and evil deeds. Fleeing from the hated lord, Keven had stumbled upon a group of disorganized outlaws who had similar tales to tell; she had promptly honed them into a blade of revenge. 

Now she looked down at the youth's crumb-covered wrists and said, "So you still like birds." 

The youth could not reply; his throat was as tight as a wall, preventing passage of his breath. Keven's smile faded as her eyes scanned him, lingering upon the long cloak he wore. "Your master clothes his slaves well," she commented. 

Her voice was divested of all emotion, but the youth felt heat enter his face, chasing away the chill of the late autumn wind. He had found the cloak in the cottage chest, when he searched there for a rough-woven blanket to replace the silk one he had given away; somehow he had overlooked the cloak when searching for clothes to sell. He had worn it with reluctance, since only lords and lord-kin wore floor-length cloaks, but he had thought it better to put the cloak to use until the next sale of the lord's goods, rather than beg Hilder for a short cloak to replace it. 

He managed to break past the barrier in his throat, saying, "Why are you here?" 

"To see how you do, of course," replied the general. "News from the magistrates' guild is hard to buy; it took us this long to discover who paid your debt price. I was surprised you didn't send word to us." 

There was mild reproach in Keven's voice, but she was smiling again, and her hand came down to rest upon his shoulder. "Are you all right, lad? The lords' oppression shows itself worst in the prisons – anyone who could survive time there has great fortitude." 

There was sincerity in her voice; there always was. Having fled from the sly machinations of her parents, Keven took great pride in being straightforward and truthful to her fellow commoners. She looked upon him with a fiery pride, as though his time in prison had proved his worth. 

Until now, the youth had felt only numb; now he felt a sickness begin to clench at his stomach. Taking a step back from Keven's hand, he said, "Why should I send you word? You didn't show any interest in my fate at the trial." 

Even as he spoke, he felt that his words were those of a petty child – words unworthy of the crystal cottage whose shadow he stood under. Keven's smile faded again, and she seemed to share his sentiment about the words, for she looked upon him with the same restrained exasperation she used to show when he failed at his lessons as an assassin. 

"Lad," she said carefully, "I know that you're sometimes slow to understand the minds of the lords, but surely you can see this. You were a trap." 

"A trap?" 

"Yes, a trap set by that lord-fawning magistrate." Her voice was suddenly as dark as the prison flagstones. "Why else would he have spared you, after you'd confessed to killing fifteen lord-kin? He was using your debt price as a way to snare the Commoners' Army – whichever commoner paid your debt price would have been arrested and tortured until he or she betrayed the names of those who fight against the lords. You surely don't think the magistrate cared what happened to you, do you? If he had, he would hardly have sent you to a debtors' prison." 

"Perhaps he didn't know what would happen to me there," the youth said in a small voice. 

The general gave a short laugh. "Men will blind themselves to all sorts of evil, if it serves their interest – or the interests of those who placed them in office. But the magistrate showed his true face by placing you in the horror that he did. We did our best to break you from your prison, but the guard-watch was too strong—" 

She stopped abruptly; her head swivelled toward the gate. The youth felt his breath jam in his throat again. The general would not have come alone, he knew; other outlaws must be here, protecting her against anyone who wished to harm her. With all his strength, he found himself hoping that the sound she had heard was not one of the estate folk who would foolishly try to capture the general. 

Keven relaxed; she held out her hand toward the youth, saying, "Come, lad; it's dangerous for us to talk here. Let's go where we can make our plans privately." 

The youth did not move; he was still struggling to breathe. After a moment, Keven said, yet more gently, "I know what was done to your hands, lad; I know that you cannot work for us as you have in the past. You need not worry. The Commoners' Army will take care of you." 

"My lord master takes care of me." 

There was a silence, punctuated only by the faint sound of ducks quacking. Then Keven said, in a voice once more devoid of expression, "Indeed." 

The youth tried again, with the desperation of a seeing man who is convinced that he can explain color to a blind man. "My lord master isn't your enemy. He cares for his commoners – he cares about all the commoners—" 

"Oh?" There was a hint of bitter amusement in Keven's voice. "And how has your master cared for you? Has he welcomed you to his estate? Held conversations with you? Shown any sign at all that you are a fellow human being, worthy of interest?" 

The youth wanted to say, "I killed the Master of the Dance," but the words caught in his throat and lodged there, hard and painful. Keven shook her head and gave him a sad smile. 

"We know how you've been treated here, lad," she said softly. "To you the lord shows his true face, because you are completely under his power. To the other commoners – those who have not yet stripped themselves of their power – he shows a false face, luring them with tidbits of friendship until they should fully enter the trap he has set for them. When the trap springs, then he will treat the others as he treats you. But until that time he smiles and gives them gifts and makes a show of sacrifice." 

The youth shook his head mutely, but Keven paid him no heed; the general's voice turned hard as a beating rod as she said, "And that brother of his was worse – far more dangerous because he was far more skilled at that game of bait-and-lure. That was why I chose him for the first execution when the time came to openly show our battle for freedom. That the other lord-kin were there that day was merely good fortune." 

Her eyes were afire with fierce pride, her voice liquid with boiling hate. The youth, staring at her as he might have stared at a hissing viper, wondered to himself that, during his days with the Commoners' Army, he had never recognized that such hatred could not co-exist with the world of joy and peace and love that Keven wished to build. 

And then, in his mind, the viper was gone, and all that was left was a young girl, crying as she contemplated her coming wedding, and planning, in a childish manner, how she would hurt anyone who looked like the lord who had courted her with fair words and a black heart. 

It was as though the walls of his prison had turned to crystal, and he could see clearly. He longed to break Keven free of her imprisonment as well, but he knew that he did not have the skill to do so. He turned back toward the gate. 

"Where are you going?" Keven's voice was sharp. 

He looked over his shoulder. "Home," he said softly. "This is my home." He turned back to the gate, pivoting his arm so that his elbow would pull up the bar. 

"I see." This time the general's voice was like a cold wind down the youth's back, or a viper's hiss upon the skin. He turned slowly, half expecting to see a blade in Keven's hand. 

The blade was there. He stared for a moment at the small, dark object she held, then shook his head vigorously. 

"I had expected your cooperation," the general said, holding up the bottle for him to see more clearly. 

He did not have to ask what the bottle contained, or who it was for. He shook his head once more, frantically. 

"You owe me a debt," the general said, her voice as careful as a scribe reckoning up payments. "A death for a life." 

"I already paid you the debt for saving my life." His voice was hollow in the stillness. "I killed children for you." 

"Ah, but I saved your life twice over. Remember the trap that the magistrate set for me and the others? If he had not desired to trap us, you would be dead today. Come." Her voice was hard like the frozen ground as she held up the vial. "One virtue you have always held above all others, and that is that you pay your debts. If you have lost all other sense of honor, don't strip yourself of what remains." 

Slowly, with the feeble movements of a sick man, he took the vial into his hands. Keven did not smile at him, merely said, "Five drops. Don't use any less, or you will fail." 

"I know," he whispered. "I remember your training." 

The vial was made of glass, and so it must have been cold, but with his hands numbed he could feel nothing. Cradling the bottle, he stepped past Keven toward the crystal cottage. Above him, the estate house's bell had begun to ring, signalling the end of mealtime. 

"Lad." Keven's voice was soft behind him. "Don't take this so much to heart. I know this is hard for you; it may be that I should have given you easier tasks in the past. But this one is needed; this death above all we need. Once that is done, you will be welcome among us again. We will not treat you as the lord has, as though you were a dumb beast, with no mind or feelings." 

He reached the door to the crystal cottage; it was hard to push up the handle without dropping the vial. Behind him, Keven said, yet more softly, "Lad?" 

The door opened, and he looked back at the general, shivering as she stood upon the snowy ground, wearing the frayed clothing she had adopted for the sake of poorer commoners. "No," he said. "I am finished." 

And he left the general there and went and hid in the dark heart of the cottage, where the windows were small and the light dim. But he took with him the vial. 

o—o—o

Warm, moist breaths emerged from the mouths of the commoners, singing songs of Erik as they made their way across the downy frost covering the estate. They had sickles in their hands, as though they were on their way to reap a winter harvest; their clothes were covered with short-cloaks, and their hands were bare, their only concession to the cold being that their loose sleeves were tied shut at the wrist. As they moved to the left of the estate house, they passed a group of tenants walking up from the village; in the tenants' hands were pipes, and they were amiably arguing over which music should be played at the winter-coming. 

The youth, standing at the window of the study overlooking the balcony, had his eye neither on the servants nor on the tenants, but on a horseman trotting up to the estate house. The figure dismounted without assistance, surprisingly lithe for his age, and handed the reins to a stable-boy who had come forward. 

The youth turned away, satisfied. Seven hours before, Hilder had left the estate in the company of the physician, travelling with the latter in order to accomplish some business for the lord in town. Now Hilder was returned, and the physician, having finished making his weekly visit to cure the youth of his last lingering illnesses from prison, would be in town, far away. 

Safely far away. The youth looked about the chamber where the lords had met nearly half a year before. The study had evidently been stripped bare of most of its furnishings at the time of the sale of the lords' belongings; only some old, worn furniture remained, and the walls held no decoration but for two pictures over the chimneypiece. 

Both were in Hilder's style. One was of the lord's brother, dressed in the leafy green headdress of the Summer Master – a rare honor, for one of the lord-kin to be granted that title by the commoners with whom he lived. The second picture was the finished version of the sketch the youth had seen in prison. The color on the edges of the painting was faint, for all of the color in the painting radiated from the central figure of the lord's brother. The crystal chain on his breast gave off sparks like stars against his dark cloak. 

The youth, standing on tiptoe and pulling himself up by way of the high chimneypiece in order to see better, found that his arm was brushing something sharp. He jerked his arm back and looked more carefully. Lying upon the broad mantel was the crystal chain, still dull from the fiery soot of its previous owner's death. It had a small gold clasp, and upon that clasp were inscribed two pairs of initials: the initials of the giver and the initials of the receiver. 

He heard a noise outside the door and spun round. He had only time enough to glance at the chamber and ascertain that what he sought was not there; then the door opened, and the lord walked in. 

His boots still had frost upon them; from the scent that wafted in with him, it seemed he had been in the stables with the remaining horses. He had a vague look in his eyes, as he often did these days, like a man who has been stunned and walks about bewildered. Then he saw the youth, and his eyes went sharp. 

For a moment, they both stood motionless, the lord and the youth, looking at each other. The youth was acutely conscious that he was wearing the same plain clothes that the lord's dead brother had worn on the day he served as the Summer Master, and he was wondering how he would manage without the object he had been seeking. He ought to have been better prepared, he thought . . . 

And then, astonishingly, the lord took a step backwards, as though he had been the intruder into the chamber. The youth's breath hit the back of his throat, and apparently the lord realized in the same moment who the master was, for he said, in broadly spaced words, "Did you wish to speak with me?" 

The youth nodded. He was not in fact prepared for a conversation and had no idea of what he would say, but he must say something, lest the lord guess why he was here. The lord closed the door and walked forward, saying, "I am glad that you are here. I was beginning to think that you would not be willing to see me again." 

There was no mockery in his voice. The youth stared at him a moment before saying, "I thought I was forbidden from speaking with you, lord master. You did not send for me." 

"Ah." The lord stopped and contemplated the desk before him, his mind apparently on more important matters than his debt-slave. "I'm sorry if you interpreted that as a command. It seemed to me that you would need time to heal from your experiences in prison, so I thought it best to leave you alone until then." 

"Everyone has done that." 

The words had escaped the youth's lips before he could call them back, but the lord merely nodded and said, "I gave orders to the estate folk that you should not be disturbed. I imagined that it would be difficult for you to make your way back to health after your time in prison." 

It was the second time the lord had spoken of the debtors' prison, and it made the youth uncomfortable. He understood what the lord meant, of course; the lord had feared that the youth held diseases that he could give to others, and so the lord had kept him isolated until the youth should be fully healed. Given all the contagions the estate had suffered under that year, it was a sensible precaution, and the youth wondered whether he was standing too close to the lord. He took a step backwards, and the lord in turn took a step backwards, as though he had remembered the old sores upon the youth's body. 

"How may I assist you?" he asked the youth, in that courteous manner he had. 

This was the question the youth had dreaded. For a minute he could think of nothing to say, and they both stood silent, as music began to rise from the hall, where the musicians were practicing for the winter-coming festival. 

Finally, in desperation, the youth said, "I – I thought I might be able to help pay the estate's debt." 

He poured forth his plan then, as he had contemplated it in the moments before he met Keven, but he was careful to omit all mention of the prison. He was still not sure whether the lord would want to be reminded of that occasion. 

The lord said nothing as he spoke; the lord said nothing after he spoke. He simply stood there, his face as stern as always, his eyes filled with anger. By the end of his speech, the youth was choking on his words, and now he stood in misery, wishing nothing more than that he could accomplish the task he had set out to do on this day. 

There was a light knock on the door, and then it opened, and in walked Hilder. The caretaker showed no surprise at seeing the youth in the lord's private study; he simply greeted the lord with a bow of the head and walked over to the window, where he drew back the curtain. Following behind him, the copper-haired girl scurried over to the desk and placed a tray there, her eyes downcast. Before the youth could see what was on the tray, Hilder stepped in front of the desk and carefully placed a small stack of papers there. 

"Ah, good," said the lord. "And they have been countersigned?" 

"I countersigned them all, lord," Hilder replied briefly. 

"Thank you." The lord waited until the caretaker and servant-girl were gone and the door shut before he walked over to the desk and leafed through the papers. Apparently satisfied at their appearance, he picked up the first paper in the pile and walked toward the youth, saying, "This ought to have been ready on the day you arrived here, for I had already provided my attorney with your school records and prison records. The only excuse I can offer for my attorney's delay is that I owe him a great deal of money." He gave a slight smile and held the paper out to the youth. 

The youth did not move. He had barely heard the words the lord had spoken, for now, at last, he could see what lay upon the tray: a bottle of wine and two cups. 

The lord seemingly treated the youth's lack of movement as rejection, for his smile disappeared, and he drew back. He cleared his throat and said, "Well, it is all legalese in any case; I doubt it would make sense to laymen such as you and me. I don't know why it takes so many fancy words to prepare a manumission document." 

For a moment, the words did not penetrate the youth's mind; he was still trying to pull his gaze away from the clear liquid upon the tray. Then he felt the darkness fall upon him, and he closed his eyes against the pain. 

It didn't matter now, he told himself. It didn't matter, so it ought not to hurt. But it did, even though he had been anticipating this moment for most of the year. It had not occurred to him that the moment had been delayed only because the lord needed to go through legal procedures to accomplish it. 

It didn't matter, but he found himself saying, as though the lord had not already told him this long ago, "You don't want me." 

He opened his eyes, and received the shock of seeing the lord staring at him, with clear astonishment written upon his features. After a moment, the lord shook his head, as though freeing himself from bewilderment, and said, "That is not the meaning of this document. If you wish to make this estate your home, you are welcome here, and I will do my best to serve you as your lord. But I will not serve you as your slave-master. And most certainly I will not serve you as your whoremaster." 

The final words were hoarse and angry; the youth found himself taking a step back, then forced himself to remain still, as he had during the days in prison. He said in a small voice, "But why did you free me from prison, if you didn't want a debt-slave?" 

The anger slid from the lord's face, like water dripping down the icicles upon the balcony railing. For the first time, the lord gestured toward the youth; it took the youth a moment to realize that he was expected to seat himself. He did so, perching himself on the edge of one of the old, horsehair armchairs. The lord continued to stand, going over to the hearth, where the fire burnt high. After a moment he said, in a voice as level as a cocked arrow, "For many reasons, but the primary one was that I owed you a debt for my crime." 

"Your crime?" The youth stared at him again, trying to imagine what act of outlawry his lord could have committed. 

"Yes." The lord seemed to think this word was sufficient response; a full minute passed before his face changed and he said, "You do not understand what I mean?" 

The youth shook his head. The lord's throat worked up and down for a moment, like a duck bobbing for fish, before he finally said, in a tight voice, "I raped you." 

The youth's breath vanished into the air and refused to return. He sat as stunned as though the lord had given him a blow; the lord's throat continued to rise and fall. 

Finally the youth said, in a breathless voice, "No! No, you didn't—!" 

He was somewhat incoherent during the next few minutes, as he strove to explain what he had been trying to do on that day in the prison cell. The lord heard him through to the garbled end, but he was shaking his head within a few seconds of the youth's beginning. 

"You were bound," he said carefully when the youth had finished. "You were bound, and you were bare, and you believed that I had come there to harm you. There could be no free gift under such circumstances; what I took from you, I took by force." 

The youth sat very still, so still that his chest did not even rise with each breath. Perhaps his thoughts scribed themselves upon his face, for the lord added, "I am not saying that your gift was worthless. If a man strives to give, but cannot because of the circumstances, then I believe that his effort is a gift in itself. I do believe your payment to me was real. But that does not discharge me from what I did." 

The youth continued to sit motionless; out of the corner of his eye he could see that Hilder had come to stand on the balcony outside the study; his back was to the chamber, for he was checking the bundles of holly held by the returning commoners. Beside Hilder, the copper-haired girl held up steaming mugs for the workers. 

"I would like to say that I was blameless for what happened," the lord said, his voice taut. "I would like to say that I was captured by a momentary and unexpected passion. But I cannot say that. Part of me knew, from the moment I saw you speak with unwavering love and loyalty at your trial, that I was drawn to you. And that same part recognized what was being offered to me when I was contacted privately by one of the prison guards. I told myself that I was only coming to your cell in order to chastise you for your crime, but part of me knew my real purpose, even before I saw you stripped naked for my base pleasure." 

For a moment more the youth could not speak; finally he said in a low voice, "But you were gentler than any of the others." 

"Others?" The lord had been watching the return of the holly-bearers; now he turned swiftly. 

The youth felt his breath catch in his throat. He was silent, and the lord took a step toward him. "Tell me," the latter said in a voice that would permit no disobedience. 

He told, stumbling over his words as his mind grew dull with darkness. Of course – the lord had not known. That was the only explanation for why he had paid the youth's debt price: he had not known that he was buying a youth who had whored himself dozens of times over. And now that he knew. . . 

The youth could not look up, even to see whether Hilder was listening to this conversation. The silence in the chamber grew long; outside the door, in the entranceway, the servants who had stayed inside were coming forward to take the holly and decorate the house. There were loud exchanges of winter-coming cheer, and the musicians, as if by cue, struck up a lively tune. 

The youth could bear the silence no longer; he looked up to find the lord looking down upon him, his eyes dark with fury. The youth pressed his wrists together, his purpose in coming here forgotten. He must remain still, he told himself. He must remain still, no matter what the lord did. 

The lord moved no closer to him; instead, he turned and walked to the chimneypiece, picked up the chain of crystals, and held it in his hands a moment. When he spoke, his voice was hard and bitter. "You will think me naive. I believed the guards when they told me I was the first to visit you. I could see from the marks upon you that you'd been mistreated by the guards, but this . . . The physician tried to tell me of this, tried to inform me of the nature of your diseases. I made him give his report to Hilder. Kipp always said I was better at talking than at listening." 

In a sudden, swift movement, he wrenched at the chain in his hands; the chain broke, scattering the crystals upon the ground. The lord made a choked noise but did not move. 

It was the youth who moved, slipping out of the chair and falling to his knees to gather up the scattered crystals as best he could. One of the crystals he touched had broken; he emitted a soft sound as his finger turned bright red, then he continued to gather the crystals in the dust under the chair. 

He stopped abruptly as a hand came down to clasp his; looking up, he saw that the lord was standing above him, leaning over. 

"Don't," the lord said softly, and brought the youth's hand up to his mouth, placing his lips over the dust and blood. 

The youth's body was atremble; he could not breathe. He knelt motionless on the ground, staring up toward the lord. From where he sat, he could see clearly the lord's calfskin boots, the gold-studded belt, the tight breeches . . . 

"Lord," he said breathlessly, "do you wish me to pour some wine?" 

The lord released his hand and nodded in an abrupt manner, turning away toward the window. Unsteadily, his legs still shaking beneath him like those of a newborn colt, the youth made his way to the opposite end of the chamber, where the copper-haired girl had placed the tray of wine and cups. His hand was fumbling with the string of his left sleeve even as he walked. As he reached the wine, the small vial tumbled out from his sleeve. 

It nearly crashed to the ground. Staggering, he managed to bring it to the desk before he dropped it; it fell softly onto the wood and spun a moment before going motionless. He stared down at it anxiously. "I know that you cannot work for us as you have in the past," Keven had said, and this was all too true; what he had been able to do within seconds in the past, he was not sure he could do at all. 

Despite knowing better, he looked over his shoulder. What he saw was reassuring; the lord had closed the curtain that revealed the activities of this chamber to Hilder and the rest of the world; only a small gap of window remained, which the lord was gazing out of. His gaze did not waver toward the youth; he seemed caught in thought. 

The youth returned to the problem of the vial. In a painstaking manner, he pressed the inner part of his wrists against the tiny bottle and lifted it that way; then he used his teeth to draw out the stopper. Another twist of the wrists, and he had poured the contents of the vial into the cup. From the length of time it took him to pour, the vial must contain at least twenty drops, but he didn't bother to measure. 

Undiluted, dry-leaf had a strong, sickening smell, but the scent all but disappeared when he poured the wine into the cup. The wine was as clear as the liquid, reddish under the firelight flickering nearby. He pushed the vial aside so that it was behind the wine bottle but otherwise did nothing to hide it. It didn't matter if they knew what he had done, afterwards. 

He stared awhile at the clear liquid, which held no sign of the poison he had poured into it, nor any smell or taste except to one as educated in poisons as himself. No purge lay within the house – he knew that, for he had searched through the storeroom where the medicines were kept. Purges were expensive, kept only by the richest lords; the lord would have sold any purges he owned at the time he sold his valuables. All was well. 

The lord was still standing next to the curtain when the youth approached him. He took the proffered cup without looking at the giver, as though he were used to having servants hand him cups with their arms. He held the cup in his hand, swirling it lightly, as he continued to look out upon the frosty world outside; his back was to the fire. 

Then he turned abruptly, and the youth had just time enough to see the stern face, lit with light from the fire, before the lord lifted the cup to his lips and drained the wine within it in a single movement. 

For a moment afterwards, he remained still, contemplating the cup as though it were a document that might reveal the answer to his financial troubles. Then he placed the cup aside on the chimneypiece; stepping carefully through the droplets of crystal still scattered upon the floor, he went over to the desk. The youth held his breath, but the lord showed no interest in the wine tray; he simply picked up the remaining documents on the desk and walked over to where the youth sat, sipping from his own cup. 

Hilder had left two cups; the youth had thought it best to use both, lest his deception be discovered in the final moments. Now, the deed done, he lowered his gaze and drank from his cup, not watching as the lord seated himself in the armchair opposite him. 

"So," said the lord in a conversational manner, "how long does it take the poison to act?" 

The words caused the youth to choke upon the dregs of his wine. Pressing his free hand against his mouth to keep from spluttering the wine over the lord's armchair, he raised his eyes tentatively toward the man opposite him. The lord was leaning back in his chair, his face no sterner than usual; the only betrayal of deeper emotion came from the hand that was picking at a frayed thread of the chair's padded arm. 

When the youth did not reply, the lord said, in the same even manner, "I may be deaf and dumb to all that occurs around me, but Hilder is not. He followed you from the hall when you left suddenly the other day, and he overheard your conversation with Keven. He was wise enough not to try to capture your general on his own, guessing that Keven must be well-guarded, but he reported to me what he had heard." 

The youth ran his tongue across the rim of his cup, which slipped from his wrists in the next moment; he was trembling too hard to be able to keep hold of it. It fell with a clatter, but no servant came to investigate; the voices in the entranceway were still loud with cheer. 

"Here," the lord said, leaning forward with document in hand. "You may wish to read this." 

He placed the paper on the youth's lap. The youth stared at the document; even his lap was trembling, and the words seemed to swim in the air. His eyes moved, scanning the page, and then he drew a sharp breath and looked up. 

The lord was continuing to tug at the frayed thread, pulling it out from the chair. He said quietly, "You helped resolve my quandary this year over whether I should tell the magistrates of my crime." 

The youth tried to catch his breath and found he could not; there was a heavy weight pressing upon him now. The lord must have mistaken the nature of his silence, for he said, "The document is legally binding. It testifies that I took my life by my own hand, with no one else's assistance." 

The youth finally said, in a faint voice, "It was countersigned . .." 

"Hilder knew that he could not change my mind on this matter. Debt payment has always been important to me, in cases where the payment would be of some use. I could not make up my mind this year as to whether confessing my crime to the magistrates would be a useless gesture, but if this will serve to help you break free from Keven . . ." 

His voice trailed off. There was greater tension in his body now, as he awaited the moment when the poison would begin its work. His fingers, picking ceaselessly at the thread, had bared a spot so large in the arm of the chair that the stuffing within could now be seen. 

The youth looked at him without speaking; he felt the touch of hot tears upon his eyes, and his vision was beginning to blur. The pressure upon his heart increased. 

The lord, receiving no reply, picked up the final paper. "I had planned this last spring in any case," he said, placing the paper in the youth's lap. "As it happens, it is the only way in which I can handle matters. My will cannot be changed – by law, the estate must go to a lord or lord-kin, so I am leaving it to my cousin. The last thing that Dermott needs is another debt-ridden estate, but I know that he will care for this place as best he can. . . . Since you are not kin to a lord, I cannot leave you any of what my father left me, but I can give you what my brother left me when he died: his cottage, his garden, and his share of the field-crops and hay and beasts." 

The youth stared down at the page in his lap, but his vision was now so blurred that he could see only a dark pond of ink upon the page. His breath was beating hard upon his chest, seeking to raise the weight there, and the lord's words came distantly to him, like music heard far away. 

Again the lord mistook the meaning of his silence, for he added, "I realize that, if this estate's fortunes continue the way they have for the past few years, what I leave you will end up being of no worth. It may be that you would be better off selling it and using the money to make your fortune elsewhere." 

The youth lifted his head. He was trying to make sense of all that the lord was saying, but it was hard; he could feel the pain in his heart as he struggled to breathe, struggled to keep the hot tears from pouring down his face. The numbness had spread from his hands to the rest of his body. 

Finally the lord seemed to take in the true nature of his silence. He let go of the frayed thread, in the moment before the stuffing would have tumbled to the floor, and leaned forward, saying softly, "You must not blame yourself for what will happen. This is not a murder, but a suicide." 

"I know," he whispered. 

The voices and music outside had faded, though he wasn't sure whether this was because the other commoners had departed or he had simply grown too distant from them. He was watching the lord's face, and he saw the moment at which the lord realized what he was saying; then the changed countenance disappeared from the youth's view as the lord leapt to his feet, shouting for Hilder. The chair fell behind him, spun for a moment, and then lay motionless. 

In the next second, the lord was kneeling by the youth, clutching at his arm. "No!" he said. "No, you didn't—!" 

The youth smiled at him. It had all come clear to him now, like the walls of the dark prison turning to crystal – he understood what was happening. The lord was petting the youth. He was petting the youth because he loved him. 

"She required of me a death, you see," he explained, smiling at the kneeling man. "She didn't say whose death it had to be. So now I've paid my debt to her, and I'm free." 

A voice spoke beside him; he knew it must belong to Hilder, but he could not turn his eyes toward the speaker; his darkening gaze was reserved for the lord. The lord's face was shifting like the firelight, changing in each moment, and the youth vaguely felt that this was no mere illusion but evidence of something strong and stern being broken. Seeking, in his dulled thoughts, for the cause of this mishap, he added, "I'm sorry I wasn't able to pay back my full debt to you. I didn't realize you would give me so much in the end." 

The lord's face was alight with clear liquid now, like a crystal. The youth's uneasiness increased; he felt sure that he had done something wrong to create this change in the lord. He reached out his hand toward the fire-filled tears making their way down the lord's face. "I'm sorry—" he whispered. 

He did not touch the lord. His hand fell, his thoughts were replaced by emptiness, and for the second time in his life he was drawn into the darkness of death.   
  

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

Feathery tufts of snow floated through the air as the copper-haired servant-girl made her way outside; she tossed back her head to catch snowcrystals on her tongue, then broke into a bright whistle in honor of the first snowfall of the year. She was still young enough to associate snow with warm fires and song-singing evenings and snow-drawing contests, rather than the increasing tension as the winter drew longer, and more people died of illness or lack of food. 

Ahead of her, her oldest companion and friend hurried forward, her pail full of the snow from the untouched drifts against the sheep-hedge. The older girl placed warning fingers against her mouth, then nodded her head toward the cottage nearby. 

The gate to the crystal cottage was open; the day being bright but for the scattered snowclouds, the copper-haired girl could see clearly the lord standing in the middle of the pane-lined chamber. He had his knuckles pressed against his mouth, and he was looking down upon the bed before him, which was stripped and empty. 

The girl looked at her companion with sober understanding, and then they both turned and silently made their way toward the house, hurrying as Hilder appeared at the side entrance and gestured toward them. 

The lord, unaware of their departure, continued to look down upon the empty bed; the darkness of the skin around his eyes betokened many hours of sleeplessness. Finally, releasing his breath heavily, he knelt down on the floor and opened the chest with a soft thump. 

In the inner bedchamber of the crystal cottage, the youth opened his eyes. 

He had been dreaming of the scene in the lord's study as he had originally intended it to happen: He found a bit of wine in the disused chamber and used its soothing taste to help him swallow the bitter poison, and then, if there was enough time, he went and told the lord what he had done, and why. In his dream, the lord nodded in a matter-of-fact manner, then turned to Hilder, who used a sickle to slice off the long portion of the debt-list that represented the youth's debt. 

Now the youth lay still upon the soft bed, feeling faint from the remaining dry-leaf and from his lack of food. The hearth in the corner of the chamber held a blazing peat fire sending wafts of warmth toward him. He sat up, felt a wave of dizziness darken his vision for a moment, then stood. He was vaguely aware that he was naked; more out of modesty than out of coldness he picked up the topmost of the wool blankets that adorned his bed and wrapped it around him, then left the chamber. 

He found the lord in the chamber of crystal panes, just rising from the chest with another blanket in hand. When the lord saw him, the blanket slipped from his fingers to the floor, and for a moment it looked as though the lord would follow, so pale did he grow. Then something in the youth's appearance pulled him back; he said, in his most masterly voice, "You ought not to be standing yet. Come lie down." 

He gestured toward the warm inner interior, but the youth, feeling his own faintness, staggered instead toward the cold summer bed, and lay down there, still wrapped in his blanket. The lord placed the second blanket over him and then remained there, kneeling beside the bed, not touching the youth. 

Looking over at him, the youth remembered the first half of his dream – or so it had seemed at the time, though he realized now it was no dream. Over and over something cold and hard had touched his lips, and he heard Hilder's voice bidding him to drink; and because Hilder's motherly strictness reminded him so much of Keven, he listened to the voice, comprehending its meaning. And all the while he could feel the grip of the lord's hand upon his own, and hear the lord's choked pleas for him to return to life. He gulped down the liquid and began to vomit forth what lay within him. . . 

He must have made an enquiring noise, for the lord said, "It was Hilder. He knew that he could not keep me from taking the poison, but he secretly obtained a purge to dry-leaf from the physician, with instructions as to its use, and waited to be on hand for when I should pay my debt to you by taking the poison." 

"I tried to pay my debt to you," the youth whispered. "I failed." 

The lord sighed, rubbing the darkness beneath his eyes. He was dressed without a cloak, and his loose sleeves had fallen back to reveal the cold-pimples upon his arms. He looked naked without his crystal chain. 

"I once thought as you did," he said quietly. "I believed that paying a debt required payment in kind, and I despaired of paying my full debt to Kipp, because I knew that he gave far more to me than I could ever return. It was Kipp who taught me the foolishness of the manner in which I tallied payments. He said that, if a gift is given in generosity, with full heart, then the payment is also full, for a generous heart knows no bounds. This is true of love or loyalty or any other generous impulse." 

The youth thought upon this, staring at the snowcrystals patting lightly upon the glass. Finally he said, "I gave everything I had in prison, and to the Commoners' Army. But—" He stopped short, unable to explain the sickness he felt when he thought of those times. 

The lord nodded. "Kipp taught me also that there is wise giving, and there is foolish giving. To give when your gift would cause the other person to do evil— I had much experience in that, before Kipp showed me how to distinguish wise giving from foolish giving." 

The youth thought a moment more, then he struggled up onto one elbow, and in a clear, forthright voice he asked, "Was it wise giving for you to let me poison you?" 

Even as he spoke, he felt fear at his boldness; he had not spoken like this since his trial – had not even thought he would ever be able to speak this way again. He waited, his body tense, to see how the lord treated his importunity. 

The lord's response, following a moment of staring, was to burst into laughter. After several seconds, the youth ventured a shy smile; the lord began to reach out a hand to him, then let it fall. 

"Well," the lord said, bringing his laughter under control, "so we have both been foolish givers. Thank all the fates that we have at least one man of wisdom on this estate. –-Ah, Hilder, our thoughts were upon you." 

The youth turned his head in time to see the caretaker slip into the inner bedchamber through the door that faced the estate; he was carrying a bundle of cloth atop a shallow box. He was followed by the copper-haired girl who, as usual, had her eyes downcast; in her hands was a tray filled with covered plates and bowls. 

The lord stood up. "You'll want to break your fast," he said. "Hilder will take care of you." He hesitated, then added, "Should you need me for anything, I'll be within call." Then the lord stepped through the door leading to the gate in the hedge; a winter wind took the opportunity to slide into the cottage as he left. 

The youth shivered, suddenly aware, as he had not been while the lord was speaking, of how cold the chamber was. Still wrapped in the blanket he had originally worn, he made his way back toward the inner bedchamber. 

He was just in time to bump squarely into the copper-haired girl, who was leaving the bedchamber. Breathlessly he stepped back to allow her to pass through the narrow space between the inner bedchamber and the door to the estate; she had glanced up at him with wide, startled eyes as they met, but now turned her eyes down again. 

Something about her gesture reminded him of himself. Following the prompting of the bold young man within, whom he was only just beginning to remember, he said, "Hello." 

Her gaze flew up toward him at once; delight was scribed upon her features. She took a quick breath, as though to speak, then looked over her shoulder toward Hilder, who had his back to this encounter. She bit her lip for a moment, then leaned forward and whispered in the youth's ear. 

"You'll come?" she concluded when she had passed on the news, too excited to lower her voice to a whisper. 

The youth felt like an ox that has been stunned at the leaf-fall slaughter, but he nodded, and the girl skipped over to the door facing the estate, breaking into a run as she carried the news back to the rest of the estate. 

She had left the door open to the outside world; once more coldness entered the cottage. The youth quietly closed the door and went back to the inner bedchamber. 

The caretaker was awaiting him. On the bed, he had laid out clothes for the youth – plain ones, such as the youth had been wearing until now, but thick for the season. Hilder gave the youth a long look, which the youth forced himself to meet, and then the caretaker turned and pulled up the lid of the shallow box lying upon the bed. After that, he walked past the youth without a word, making his way through the outside door and into the swirling whiteness of the snowcrystals. 

The youth walked slowly to the box. In the firelight, he could not make out at once what was within the box; he had to pull out the heavy object there and lay it upon the desk. Then he saw that it was a framed picture. 

It was the finished version of the sketch he had seen Hilder create at haymaking time. Everything that had been in the original sketch was here, colored brightly: the estate folk standing in a circle around the crop-field; the pointing, the smiles, and the joyful laughter. 

Only now the center of the circle showed a figure. It was kneeling down to scoop up the stalks of wheat whilst all of the other workers were resting. It was the youth. 

He felt his legs begin to tremble, and he had to sit down hastily upon the chair. He sat awhile like that, looking at the bright figures and the even brighter figure in the center of the picture, from which the colors radiated. Then, on impulse, he went back to the box. 

He found more pictures there, unframed and often no more than sketches that had been lightly colored: each picture featured himself, struggling to fetch water or nudging forward a fallen object with his foot or accomplishing some other small task. And in each picture he was watched by the other commoners of the estate. The pictures were stacked in chronological order, so he could see how, in the early days, the estate folk had watched him with suspicion or despising. But gradually, as the weeks went by, their expressions changed into wary acceptance, and then into active welcome. In several of the pictures, one of the commoners was stepping forward, his hand outreached and his mouth open, evidently wishing to speak to the youth, but in every case he was held back by another commoner, who pointed at the lord who had ordered that they should remain silent until the youth was far enough healed from his wounds that he would welcome their greeting. 

The lord was in every picture, watching him. 

The youth nibbled at the food and dressed himself as he relived his months at the estate, seeing himself as the estate folk had seen him. When he came to the final picture in the box, he groped blindly upon the bed, to see whether he had missed any article of clothing; he could not break his gaze from the sketch before him. It was different from the others, done in broad, hasty strokes, as though from memory. It showed the archway leading from the estate to the crystal cottage; along both sides of the archway, servants and tenants were lined, grief-stricken or openly weeping. They were looking at the youth, who lay limp and close-eyed in the arms of the lord who was taking him to lie in the crystal cottage. The lord's head was bowed, as though he were carrying a burden too great to be borne. 

The youth's hand, groping, touched something sharp. Looking down, he saw the crystal chain upon the bed; it had been hidden by the clothes. He picked it up carefully, noticing how, when the crystals were restrung, they were polished free of their former soot. He placed the chain on the desk, since it had obviously made its way into this chamber by mistake, and was about to turn aside when he noticed that the chain had a new clasp, different from the one it had possessed before. He leaned forward, peering at it in the firelight. Upon the clasp were inscribed two pairs of initials: the initials of the giver and the initials of the receiver. 

Then the hot tears were pricking at his eyes. He pushed them back impatiently, having no time for such matters now, and reached for the chain. 

The air outside was not as chill as before, now that he was clothed. He walked slowly, enjoying the novelty of pressing imprints into the shallow snow with the boots that Hilder had left for him. The yard at the boys' cottage had always been slushy at wintertime, and during his winter with the Commoners' Army he had been so absorbed with his important task that he had taken little notice of his surroundings. Now he felt the snowcrystals brush his face softly before falling feather-light upon the white bedding over the estate. 

All was changed with the coming of winter: familiar landmarks such as the gravel driveway had disappeared, and new landmarks such as drifts against the hedges struck his eyes in a dazzle of liquid white. Only one landmark remained unchanged: in a part of the marble pavement that had been swept, the lord sat in his chair, his back to the youth. 

When the youth came near, he saw that the lord was now cloaked but held no writing materials in hand; he was simply gazing toward the horizon, where dark clouds met pure white ground, as though contemplating the coming year. He turned his head slowly to look at the youth; then a smile touched his face, as light as the snowcrystals, and his hand reached toward the crystal chain upon the youth's chest. 

His hand fell before it reached the youth, and he rose from the chair. "You've been ill," he said. "We ought to be speaking inside." 

The youth looked toward the main entrance to the house, which was festooned with holly. He could imagine the crowd gathering within, and all of them would have heard the copper-haired girl's news by now. Unexpectedly, he felt apprehension toward the change that would take place in his world when he walked through that door. 

Perhaps the lord understood, for he said, "Well, it is a pleasant day, and there is no wind. Shall we walk a little further, then?" 

They went back in the direction the youth had come, leaving bootprints side-by-side in the snow; the lord walked far enough away from the youth that their cloaks did not touch, but he kept glancing in the direction of the youth, as though the youth were leading the way. Perhaps he was, for they ended up at the gated entrance to the hedged area where the ducks lived. 

Seen close up, the hedges turned from green to green and red. Without hesitation, the lord swung open the unlocked gate and stepped through the arched trellis, which was covered in twining brown vines that no doubt came abloom during the summer. 

The youth followed him. For a moment, as the gate swung shut, he could feel only disappointment, for this place, which he had imagined as a world of enchanted delight, was nothing but whiteness with flecks of blue. Then the colors resolved themselves into a pond. The edge of the pond was iced over, but someone had taken care that the center remained open, and swimming there, in a tight bunch, were a group of grey and scarlet ducks. 

They sighted the intruders at once and scrambled squawking over each other, bellying their way onto the ice and slipping on the slick pavement of the pond as they struggled to run. They were running in the direction of the intruders, not away from them. 

The youth looked over at the lord and said, in a voice that tried to be indifferent, "You keep them for meat?" 

"We eat the pond-fish," the lord said, smiling. "Kipp would never let me touch the ducks." 

"Kipp—" The youth looked once more at the glossy green leaves of the hedges and their scarlet berries. 

The lord nodded as though the word had been a question, and said, "This was Kipp's garden." 

He had to raise his voice to be heard, for the ducks, having reached the visitors, were screeching in their rubbery voices, practically climbing the boots of the lord and the youth in their eagerness. The youth said, with the renewed boldness that still surprised him, "I think they're hungry." 

"I've no doubt they are, greedy beggars. They're well fed each day; I've been undertaking that task since Kipp died. But as you're here now—" He pulled his hands out of his cloak and held out a cloth bag to the youth. 

The youth took it into his arms and peered into it; in the bright snow-light he could clearly see the crumbs within. Still cradling the bag with one arm, he tried scooping out the crumbs with his hand. Even though he could not feel the crumbs, they came easily, since he did not need to tighten his hand around them. The ducks, sighting their goal, grew frantic with excitement. 

He was just about to turn his palm ground-down when a thought came to him and broke his breathing. He looked at his hand, and then over at the lord. "The picture," he said. 

The lord nodded. He had been watching the crystal-clothed figure before him; now he said nothing. 

Even with his boldness, the youth did not know how to voice the words. Finally he said, "I liked the picture." 

The lord waited, but the youth said nothing further. Finally the lord stepped behind him and placed his hands very lightly upon his shoulders. "Is this what you liked?" he asked in a low voice. 

The youth nodded. As the hands slid down and then turned into arms wrapped softly about him, he raised his hand, and the crumbs flew into the air, as light as snowcrystals, falling toward the ebullient beaks below. 

The quacking became more deafening, not less. The youth quickly scattered the remaining crumbs, conscious of the lord's cheek against his hair. When he was through, the ducks would not believe the meal was over. Finally the youth had to drop the bag to the ground; they nuzzled in it for a moment before waddling away, satisfied. 

He said, watching them go, "If you should want— That is, if it was your desire—" 

"No!" The voice was swift, steadfast, and soft. "My joy is complete, without need for more." 

The ducks had settled to nibbling at their feathers; their webbed feet allowed them to stand atop the snow as they did so, though they occasionally wiggled their tails against the snowcrystals, as though shaking off pond-water. The air was still now, with the deep quiet of winter-coming. 

The youth turned swiftly, flinging himself at the lord in an awkward, unpracticed manner; he was not even sure what to do with his arms, but let them fall to his side, pressing himself against the lord's chest. 

It was a mistake; he realized that at once, even before he felt the hard swelling push against him. He could smell now the lord's scent – a musky smell that sent so much sickness through him that it was as though the poison had begun its work again. 

It all came to him at once then: the days and nights of kneeling bound or lying crushed to the ground, the bleeding throat, the shouts and blows, the months of nightmares as he waited for the lord to call for him and to take his pleasure upon the youth's body; the moment when the lord kissed his finger and he was sure it was all beginning again . . . 

Faintly, he could hear rasping sobs and knew they were his own. He could not breathe amidst the muskiness; the tears were as chill upon his face as the prison stones. 

And then he became aware that he was no longer being held. The lord's arms had fallen free, and the swelling had disappeared, as though driven back by a greater force. Only one hand touched him, stroking his hair very lightly as the lord murmured half-coherent apologies and reassurances. 

He remembered the manumission paper then. He could leave this estate, and the lord would let him go. He could stay and require the lord to keep away from him, and the lord would do so. He could order the lord to kneel to him, and he knew, without doubt, that the lord would comply. 

A stillness came over him, like the quiet of the winter estate. He curled his arms around the lord's back, and after a moment, the lord's left arm slipped around him, even softer than before, while the right hand continued to stroke his hair. The scent was still there, bringing dark memories, but there were newer memories now, insisting to be heard. The youth sighed and rested his head upon the chest before him. 

He and the lord stayed that way for a while, silent. Finally the youth whispered, "Lord—" then stopped uncertainly. 

"You can call me Fulbert, Gib." 

The youth forgot to breathe. He had never known his name – had never seen the school records that held that secret. He had wondered whether the lord knew, and would tell him. 

He had been about to ask the lord whether, if his feelings changed in the future, Fulbert would allow their relationship to change, but now he realized how foolish a question that was. He had received his answer to that question nine months before, when Lord Fulbert spoke of his brother. Gib sighed again, more deeply, and snuggled against the warmth of the lord. The song was over now, he thought. The tale was completed; nothing remained to be said. 

From behind him came a quack. 

He turned to look. The lame duck must have been at the far end of the pond, for, limping in her slow manner, she had a frantic look to her, as though she had run with all her might. She reached Gib's feet and looked up at him expectantly, waiting. 

He felt a hardness form in his throat, and he knelt down to show her the bag. "There's no more," he said. "I'll bring you food later, I promise." 

She inspected the bag briefly, then looked up at him a moment, then turned and began to limp away, slower than before. 

She had not gone far, and Gib had only just risen to his feet, when one of the scarlet ducks, driven by unseasonable passion or idle viciousness, launched himself at her, swiftly pinning her to the ground with his beak and mounting her. 

Then he squawked back, startled by the soft snow that had been driven onto his back. "Get away!" yelled Gib, his face flushed and his fists trying to clench. "Leave her alone!" 

The male duck retreated hastily. For a moment, the lame duck remained where she was, half-hidden in the snow; then she extracted herself, gave Gib a long look, and calmly began to prune the feathers on her chest. 

He did not realize he was trembling until he felt Fulbert's steady hand upon his shoulder. "It's all over," the lord said quietly. "It won't happen again." 

Gib turned his head; from the gravity of Fulbert's expression, he had no doubt what the lord had meant. "Not to me," he replied. "But to the other prisoners." 

Fulbert's breath drew in sharply. "I hadn't thought of that." 

"I have." Gib looked back at the lame duck, peacefully at work. "I've had nightmares about it since I left the prison. I know that the guards were raping the other prisoners, and now that I'm gone . . . I don't think the guards will forgo the income they received from me. They'll find another prisoner to sell." 

He looked again at Fulbert, whose cloak was feathered now with snowcrystals. "The magistrate who sentenced me to the prison," Gib said. "He was fair in his judgment of me." 

"Hacon? Yes, he has a name for handing down unpopular but impartial decisions." 

"If I were to tell him what's happening in the debtors' prison, do you think he'd listen?" 

Fulbert thought upon this, then nodded abruptly. "The magistrates are forever lenient in pursuing investigations of the rich and powerful," he said, "but if you told him that an exchange of money was taking place, he would be inclined to listen. . . . It would go hard for you, though. You would have to testify at the trials of the guards and anyone else who was arrested, and you would become a renewed target of hatred from those who failed to recognize your motives for doing this." 

Gib nodded. He had thought of it much, during the months since he overheard the lords' meeting – of what he would do if Fulbert offered him the chance, and of what it would mean for him. He was grateful he knew this time what to expect, and had been given time to prepare himself. 

Fulbert's gaze drifted back toward the estate house, where the tower bell was beginning to ring. For a moment his look lingered there; then he appeared to reach some decision, for he turned back to Gib and said, in a level manner, "We'll start our journey tomorrow to the city, so that we can tell Hacon what passed between us in the prison." 

Gib tensed, and he swiftly shook his head. "No, not that. I wasn't going to tell him about that. I would leave you aside from this—" 

"Gib, you have no choice but to involve me." Fulbert's stern voice was uncommonly gentle. "I am the only proof you have that the story is true. I can tell Hacon that the guards offered to let me visit you for a fee, that they encouraged me to abuse you, and that, once I had done this, they encouraged me to come again." 

Gib stared at the pure whiteness in the holly garden, feeling turmoil storm inside him. In the months past, he would have taken any steps he could to save his lord master from harm. He imagined himself saying firmly, "No, I will never do anything that would cause you to be hurt." It would be a great gift, a great sacrifice, for him to continue to live with his nightmares of the screaming prisoners. 

But before him was the duck, free and at peace, and he heard a voice whisper within him, "Foolish giving." 

"My dearheart," said Fulbert softly, "it is not as bad as you fear. Unfortunately, the Commoners' Army is right about the privileges of the lords: few lords who commit rape receive the death penalty that justice demands, and since I will confess my crime without prompting, it's unlikely I'll pay for this with my life. All that will happen is that I'll end up in the debtors' prison until Hilder should find a new way to raise money to pay a debt price." 

Gib imagined the lord sitting in his old, cold cell, surrounded by rough stones and darkness; he closed his eyes against the pain that swept through him. A hand touched him lightly, and Fulbert said, "Have you heard the songs of Erik the Commoners' Soldier?" 

He opened his eyes to see Fulbert smiling at him. It was a relaxed smile, with no edge of distress. The lord said, "When I was young, Hilder used to sing those songs to Kipp and me, and I would dream of being Erik, sitting in his dark prison cell because he had aided the commoners. It was a shock to me when I grew older and realized I was expected to play the role of the evil lord." 

His arm slipped around Gib's shoulders, and his smile turned to joy. "Isn't it surpassing wondrous when our childhood dreams turn true? Come, let's go to where we're awaited; afterwards, we can ask Hilder his advice on how best to do this." 

They walked under the vine-covered arch, past the scarlet holly hedges, heading toward the estate house. The bell was ringing eagerly now, calling the estate's lord – calling also the Winter Master, who serves as the symbol of life and growth amidst want. 

They talked as they went, making bootprints close together in the snow, and behind them the lame duck stood at the garden gateway and watched, waiting for the lord and the youth to return.

**Author's Note:**

> **_Debt Price_ **   
>  **HISTORICAL NOTE**
> 
> Modern films of sixteenth-century Europe often emphasize the terrible inhumanity to humanity that occurred at this time, with guilty and innocent alike being cast into prison and, in some cases, "suffering," the term at that time for execution. 
> 
> But people of the pre-modern era may have had more pressing matters on their mind than transitory human battles. A writer in medieval England eloquently describes the effects in 1315 of too much rain:  
>  
>
>>   
>  _The dearth began in the month of May and lasted until the feast of the nativity of the Virgin [September 8]. The summer rains were so heavy that grain could not ripen. It could hardly be gathered and used to bake bread down to the said feast day unless it was first put in vessels to dry. Around the end of autumn the dearth was mitigated in part, but toward Christmas it became as bad as before. Bread did not have its usual nourishing power and strength because the grain was not nourished by the warmth of summer sunshine. Hence those who ate it, even in large quantities, were hungry again after a little while. There can be no doubt that the poor wasted away when even the rich were constantly hungry. . . ._
>> 
>> _Four pennies worth of coarse bread was not enough to feed a common man for one day. The usual kinds of meat, suitable for eating, were too scarce; horse meat was precious; plump dogs were stolen. And, according to many reports, men and women in many places secretly ate their own children._
>> 
>> — _Johannes de Trokelowe:_ Annates _([longer quotation and credit](http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/source/famin1315a.asp) at Paul Halsell's _ Internet Medieval Source Book _)._  
> 
> 
>   
>  In the sixteenth century, the medieval farming year still held sway. My main resource for this story has been Dorothy Hartley's detailed and helpfully illustrated _Lost Country Life_ (1979).
> 
> H. Rose Melenche's illustrative rendering of the story's estate house is based upon [Hardwick Hall](http://www.derbyshireuk.net/hardwick_hall8.jpg), a sixteenth-century estate house that is described in an old jingle as being "more glass than wall."
> 
> o—o—o  
> o—o—o  
> o—o—o
> 
> _Beta reader:_ [Juxian Tang](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Juxian_Tang%27s_Fiction).
> 
>  _Additional editorial assistance:_ [Anne Blue](http://slashbluegreen.livejournal.com/profile).
> 
> This story was originally published, with minor differences, in the October 2002 issue of [_MAS-Zine_](http://fanlore.org/wiki/MAS-Zine). [Publication history](http://duskpeterson.com/cvhep.htm#debtprice).
> 
> This text, or a variation on it, was originally published at [duskpeterson.com](http://duskpeterson.com) as part of the series Master/Other. Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2012, 2013 Dusk Peterson. Some rights reserved. The text is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0). You may freely print, post, e-mail, share, or otherwise distribute the text for noncommercial purposes, provided that you include this paragraph. The [author's policies on fan works](http://duskpeterson.com/copyright.htm) are available online (duskpeterson.com/copyright.htm).


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